Related papers: Heterogeneous ice nucleation on model substrates
The formation mechanism of ice banding in the system of freezing colloidal suspensions, which is of significance in frost heaving, ice-templating porous materials and biological materials, still remains a mystery. Recently, the theory of…
In principle, the answer to the posed titular question is undoubtedly 'yes.' But in practice, requisite reference data for homogeneous systems have been obtained with a treatment of intermolecular interactions that is different from that…
Classical nucleation theory has been recently reformulated based on fluctuating hydrodynamics [J.F. Lutsko and M.A. Dur\'{a}n-Olivencia, J. Chem. Phys. 138, 244908 (2013)]. The present work extends this effort to the case of nucleation in…
Over recent years, molecular simulations have provided invaluable insights into the microscopic processes governing the initial stages of crystal nucleation and growth. A key aspect that has been observed in many different systems is the…
This paper aims to elucidate the role of interface energy anisotropy in orientation selection during nucleation of new grains in a polycrystalline film growth. An assessment of (heterogeneous) nucleation probability as function of…
Aluminum alloys, the most widely utilized lightweight structural materials, predominantly depend on coherent complex-structured nano-plates to enhance their mechanical properties. Despite several decades of research, the atomic-scale…
We investigate with computer simulations the effect of applying an electric field on the water-to-ice transition. We use a combination of state-of-the-art simulation techniques to obtain phase boundaries and crystal growth rates (direct…
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…
Interface energy and kinetic coefficient of crystal growth strongly depend on the face of the crystalline lattice. To investigate the kinetic anisotropy and velocity of different crystallographic faces we use the hyperbolic (modified) phase…
Recent first-principle calculations unveiled a distinctive dynamic behavior in water molecule rotation during the melting process of highly confined water, indicating a notable time-scale separation in diffusion. In this short paper, we…
We used molecular dynamics simulations and the path sampling technique known as forward flux sampling to study homogeneous nucleation of NaCl crystals from supersaturated aqueous solutions at 298 K and 1 bar. Nucleation rates were obtained…
We introduce a general formalism to analyze nucleation phenomena in inhomogeneous media which considers the influence of the metastable phase, which is treated as a heat bath in which clusters are embedded, in the dynamics of the nucleation…
Nuclear superfludity in exotic nuclei close to the drip lines and in the inner crust matter of neutron stars have common features which can be treated with the same theoretical tools. In the first part of my lecture I discuss how two such…
The nucleation of bubbles in first-order phase transitions is traditionally characterised by the critical bubble: defined as the saddle-point solution of the Euclidean action that separates collapsing from expanding field configurations.…
The structural properties of packed soft-core particles provide a platform to understand the cross-pollinated physical concepts in solid-state- and soft-matter physics. Confined on spherical surface, the traditional differential geometry…
We investigate about the possibility of knowing the thermal history of each snow crystal through the analysis of its individual habitus. Supposition, based on experimental observations, that prevailing growth mechanisms of basal and…
Using state-of-the-art rare-event sampling simulations, we precisely characterize the nucleation of liquid droplets from a supersaturated Lennard-Jones gas and uncover a key physical feature: critical clusters nucleate with a density that…
Nucleation is the onset of a first-order phase transition by which a metastable phase transforms into a more stable one. Such a phase transition occurs when an initial system initially in equilibrium is destabilized by the change of an…
Despite its fundamental and technological importance, a microscopic understanding of the crystallization process is still elusive. By computer simulations of the hard-sphere model we reveal the mechanism by which thermal fluctuations drive…
The ability to manipulate polar entities with multiple external fields opens exciting possibilities for emerging functionalities and novel applications in spin systems, photonics, metamaterials, and soft matter. Liquid crystals (LCs),…