Related papers: Nucleation of crystal surfaces with corner energy …
Recent observations of the growth of protein crystals have identified two different growth regimes. At low supersaturation, the surface of the crystal is smooth and increasing in size due to the nucleation of steps at defects and the…
It is widely believed that heterogeneous nucleation occurs without an activation process when the surface is completely wettable. In this report, we review our previous work [J.Chem.Phys {\bf 134}, 234709 (2011)] to show that the critical…
Studies of nucleation generally focus on the properties of the critical cluster, but the presence of defects within the crystal lattice means that the population of nuclei necessarily evolve through a distribution of pre-critical clusters…
We discuss the structure of the equation of motion that governs nucleation processes at first order phase transitions. From the underlying microscopic dynamics of a nucleating system, we derive by means of a non-equilibrium projection…
The solidification of polycrystalline materials can be modelled by orientation-field models, which are formulated in terms of two continuous fields: a phase field that describes the thermodynamic state and an orientation field that…
We review how phase-field models contributed to the understanding of various aspects of crystal nucleation including homogeneous and heterogeneous processes, and their role in microstructure evolution. We recall results obtained both by the…
We present a computer simulation study on the crystal nucleation process in suspensions of hard spheres, fully taking into account the solvent hydrodynamics. If the dynamics of collodial crystallization were purely diffusive, the crystal…
In this work, we present an efficient framework that combines machine learning potential (MLP) and metadynamics to explore multi-dimensional free energy surfaces for investigating solid-solid phase transition. Based on the spectral…
Viscoelastic phase separation of colloidal suspensions can be interrupted to form gels either by glass transition or by crystallization. With a new confocal microscopy protocol, we follow the entire kinetics of phase separation, from…
In this paper we focus on crystal surfaces led out of equilibrium by a growth or erosion process. As a consequence of that the surface may undergo morphological instabilities and develop a distinct structure: ondulations, mounds or…
Equilibrium relationships involving solids are based on bulk thermodynamic properties that concern ideal crystals of infinite size. However, real processes towards equilibrium imply development of finite molecular-scale entities. The…
We investigate the dynamical evolution of a thermodynamically unstable crystal surface into a hill-and-valley structure. We demonstrate that, for quasi one-dimensional ordering, the equation of motion maps exactly to the modified…
A miscut (vicinal) crystal surface can be regarded as an array of meandering but non-crossing steps. Interactions between the steps are shown to induce a faceting transition of the surface between a homogeneous Luttinger liquid state and a…
Nuclear level density at low excitation energies is proposed as an indicator of the first order phase transitions in nuclei. The new signature, a maximum value of the level density at the critical point, appears to be sensitive to the…
We use Brownian Dynamics simulations in combination with the umbrella sampling technique to study the effect of shear flow on homogeneous crystal nucleation. We find that a homogeneous shear rate leads to a significant suppression of the…
Despite numerous efforts from numerical approaches to complement experimental measurements, several fundamental challenges have still hindered one's ability to truly provide an atomistic picture of the nucleation process in nanocrystals.…
A widely spread method of crystal preparation is to precipitate it from a supersaturated solution. In such a process, control of solution concentration is of paramount importance. Nucleation process, polymorph selection, and crystal habits…
Both simple and sophisticated models are frequently used in an attempt to understand how real nuclei breakup when subjected to large excitation energies, a process known as nuclear multifragmentation. Many of these models assume…
The Euclidean dynamical symmetry hidden in the critical region of nuclear shape phase transitions is revealed by a novel algebraic F(5) description. With a nonlinear projection, it is shown that the dynamics in the critical region of the…
We study the nucleation of crystalline cluster phases in the generalized exponential model with exponent n=4. Due to the finite value of this pair potential for zero separation, at high densities the system forms cluster crystals with…