2002/12/20 by Mario Castro · 87 citations
Chemistry · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Engineering · Materials Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Aluminum Alloy Microstructure Properties #Amorphous solid #Chemistry #Crystallization #Crystallography #Field (mathematics) #Geology #Homogeneous #Impurity #Materials science #Mathematics #Nucleation #Phase (matter) #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Recrystallization (geology) #Solidification and crystal growth phenomena #Statistical physics #Thermodynamics #cond-mat.stat-mech #nanoparticles nucleation surface interactions
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.67.035412
published in Physical review. B, Condensed matter 67(3) (American Physical Society) · 8 pages including 7 figures. Accepted for publication in Physical Review B
arxiv created 2002/12/20 · openalex publication_date 2003/01/21 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We consider the problem of heterogeneous nucleation and growth. The system is described by a phase-field model in which the temperature is included through thermal noise. We show that this phase-field approach is suitable to describe homogeneous as well as heterogeneous nucleation starting from several general hypotheses. Thus we can investigate the influence of grain boundaries, localized impurities or any general kind of imperfections in a systematic way. We also put forward the applicability of our model to study other physical situations such as island formation, amorphous crystallization, or recrystallization.