Related papers: On the Variability of Critical Size for Homogeneou…
Nucleation and growth of crystal in an oxide glass was studied in a Si B Al Zr Nd Ca Na O system. The nucleation and growth process was monitored by thermal analysis and isothermal experiments. For the Ca sample the crystallization is…
The dynamics of phase transformation due to homogeneous nucleation has long been analyzed using the classic Kolmogorov-Johnson-Mehl-Avrami (KJMA) theory. However, the dynamics of phase transformation due to heterogeneous nucleation has not…
Nucleation, commonly associated with discontinuous transformations between metastable and stable phases, is crucial in fields as diverse as atmospheric science and nanoscale electronics. Traditionally, it is considered a microscopic process…
We report neutron diffraction studies of low density bcc and hcp solid 4He. In the bcc phase, we observed a continuous dynamical behaviour involving macroscopic structural changes of the solid. The dynamical behaviour takes place in a cell…
We study concentrated binary colloidal suspensions, a model system which has a glass transition as the volume fraction $\phi$ of particles is increased. We use confocal microscopy to directly observe particle motion within dense samples…
Phase diagrams of some globular proteins have a fluid-fluid transition as well as a fluid-crystal transition. Homogeneous nucleation of the crystal from the fluid phase near the critical point of the fluid-fluid transition is examined. As…
As the glass (in molecular fluids\cite{Donth}) or the jamming (in colloids and grains\cite{LiuNature1998}) transitions are approached, the dynamics slow down dramatically with no marked structural changes. Dynamical heterogeneity (DH) plays…
Homogeneous nucleation is formulated within the context of fluctuating hydrodynamics. It is shown that for a colloidal or macromolecular system in the strong damping limit the most likely path for nucleation can be determined by gradient…
Heterogeneous nucleation is studied by Monte Carlo simulations and phenomenological theory, using the two-dimensional lattice gas model with suitable boundary fields. A chemical inhomogeneity of length b at one boundary favors the liquid…
Homogeneous nucleation, a textbook transition path for phase transitions, is typically understood on thermodynamic grounds through the prism of classical nucleation theory. However, recent studies have suggested the applicability of…
An analytical model for the evolution of the boundary of the new phase in transformations ruled by nucleation and growth is presented. Both homogeneous and heterogeneous nucleation have been considered: The former includes transformations…
The existence of phase-separated states is an essential feature of infinite-volume systems with a thermal, first-order phase transition. At energies between those at which the phase transition takes place, equilibrium homogeneous states are…
Heterogeneous nucleation is central to many familiar first-order phase transitions such as the freezing of water and the solidification of metals, and it can also play a crucial role in cosmology. We examine nucleation seeded by preexisting…
We compare the slow dynamics of irreversible gels, colloidal gels, glasses and spin glasses by analyzing the behavior of the so called non-linear dynamical susceptibility, a quantity usually introduced to quantitatively characterize the…
We study crystal nucleation under the influence of sedimentation in a model of colloidal hard spheres via Brownian Dynamics simulations. We introduce two external fields acting on the colloidal fluid: a uniform gravitational field (body…
The nucleation of a lamellar phase from a supercooled homogeneous phase in a fluctuation driven first-order transition is studied, based on a phenomenological free energy due to Brazovskii. The absence of phase coexistence in the…
Computational studies of crystal nucleation can be impacted by finite size effects, primarily due to unphysical interactions between crystalline nuclei and their periodic images. It is, however, not always feasible to systematically…
In this work we study morphological characteristics of the critically-sized crystalline nuclei at initial stage of the shear-induced crystallization of a model single-component amorphous (glassy) system. These characteristics are estimated…
We study the long time behavior (homogenization) of a diffusion in random medium with time and space dependent coefficients. The diffusion coefficient may degenerate. In Stochastic Process. Appl. (2007) (to appear), an invariance principle…
In heterogeneous solids such as rocks and concrete, the speed of sound diminishes with the strain amplitude of a dynamic loading (softening). This decrease known as "slow dynamics" occurs at time scales larger than the period of the…