Related papers: Nucleation and step-edge barriers always destabili…
We consider the growth of a vicinal crystal surface in the presence of a step-edge barrier. For any value of the barrier strength, measured by the length l_es, nucleation of islands on terraces is always able to destroy asymptotically…
We study the effect of crystal symmetry and step-edge diffusion on the surface current governing the evolution of a growing crystal surface. We find there are two possible contributions to anisotropic currents, which both lead to the…
Nucleation and growth is the dominant relaxation mechanism driving first order phase transitions. In two-dimensional at systems nucleation has been applied to a wide range of problems in physics, chemistry and biology. Here we study…
Nucleation is an activated process in which the system has to overcome a free energy barrier in order for a first-order phase transition between the metastable and the stable phases to take place. In the liquid-to-solid transition the…
The basic physics of nucleation in solid \hl{single-crystal} nanoparticles is revealed by a phase-field theory that includes surface energy, chemical reactions and coherency strain. In contrast to binary fluids, which form arbitrary contact…
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…
We study irreversible dimer nucleation on top of terraces during epitaxial growth in one and two dimensions, for all values of the step-edge barrier. The problem is solved exactly by transforming it into a first passage problem for a random…
Nucleation of a new phase almost always starts at a surface. This surface is almost always assumed not to change with time. However, surfaces can roughen, partially dissolve and change chemically with time. Each of these irreversible…
Understanding the mechanism of nucleation of the stable phase inside the metastable parent phase during a first order phase transition has been a subject of outstanding interest in natural science. The problem becomes even more challenging…
The surface shape of a spinning bucket of granular material is studied using a continuum model of surface flow developed by Bouchaud et al. and Mehta et al. An experimentally observed central subcritical region is reproduced by the model.…
A new simple method for description of the nucleation process on the wide class of heterogeneous centers is given. The nucleation occurs on the heterogeneous centers with different heights of activation barriers. The distribution of the…
The thermodynamics of strongly anisotropic crystalline surfaces is analogous to that of a binary mixture exhibiting phase separation. On a metastable planar surface, formation of stable orientations requires a nucleation process, in which…
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 growth of crystal surfaces, under non-equilibrium conditions, involves the displacement of mono-atomic steps by atom diffusion and atom incorporations into steps. The time-evolution of the growing crystal surface is thus governed by a…
We develop a theory of nucleation on top of two-dimensional islands bordered by steps with an additional energy barrier $\Delta E_S$ for descending atoms. The theory is based on the concept of the residence time of an adatom on the…
Long-ranged step-step attractions destabilize the vicinal crystal surfaces. Their competition with shorter-ranged step-step repulsions results in self-organized patterns. The exponent in the time-scaling of their characteristic size is…
Systems with long-range interactions when quenced into a metastable state near the pseudo-spinodal exhibit nucleation processes that are quite different from the classical nucleation seen near the coexistence curve. In systems with…
We approach the old-standing problem of vicinal crystal surfaces destabilized by step-down and step step-up currents from a unified modelling viewpoint with focus on both the initial and the intermediate stages of the instability. We…
The morphology of a growing crystal surface is studied in the case of an unstable two-dimensional step flow. Competition between bunching and meandering of steps leads to a variety of patterns characterized by their respective instability…
A phase diagram for a one dimensional fiber bundle model is constructed with a continuous variation in two parameters guiding dynamics of the model: strength of disorder and system size. We monitor the successive events of fiber rupture in…