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IOP Publishing, Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, 36(22), p. 364104, 2010

DOI: 10.1088/0953-8984/22/36/364104

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A phase-field-crystal approach to critical nuclei

Journal article published in 2010 by Rainer Backofen ORCID, Axel Voigt
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

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Abstract

We investigate a phase-field-crystal model for homogeneous nucleation. Instead of solving the time evolution of a density field towards equilibrium we use a String Method to identify saddle points in phase space. The saddle points allow to obtain the nucleation barrier and the critical nucleus. The advantage of using the phase-field-crystal model for this task is its ability to resolve atomistic effects. The obtained results indicate different properties of the critical nucleus compared with bulk crystals and show a detailed description of the nucleation process. ; Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, submitted