Diffusion-Controlled Anisotropic Growth of Stable and Metastable Crystal Polymorphs in the Phase-Field Crystal Model

Abstract

We use a simple density functional approach on a diffusional time scale, to address freezing to the body-centered cubic (bcc), hexagonal close-packed (hcp), and face-centered cubic (fcc) structures. We observe faceted equilibrium shapes and diffusion-controlled layerwise crystal growth consistent with twodimensional nucleation. The predicted growth anisotropies are discussed in relation with results from experiment and atomistic simulations. We also demonstrate that varying the lattice constant of a simple cubic substrate, one can tune the epitaxially growing body-centered tetragonal structure between bcc and fcc, and observe a Mullins-Sekerka-Asaro-Tiller-Grinfeld-type instability.

Two-dimensional growth, anisotropic polaron transport, and magnetic phase segregation in epitaxial Nd0.52Sr0.48MnO3 films

“…It has been shown recently that the growth-rate ratio s100/ s110 ranges from 1.2-1.8 for face-centered cubic structures. 16 In our case, assuming that the growth speed is d / t, where t is the deposition time, s100/ s110ϳ 1.42, in good agreement with the theoretical prediction. However, other things also affect the thickness of films deposited on a single-crystal substrates.…”

Liquid to solid nucleation via onion structure droplets

“…Examples include cholesteric liquid crystals [1], hydronamic instabilities [2], superconducting vortices [3], block copolymers [4], as well as many others [5]. In recent years, there has been considerable renewed interest is the dynamical process of a first-order phase transition from a uniform (liquid) phase to a modulated (solid) phase following a quench [6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. If the supercooled liquid phase is long-lived, rare metastable equilibrium fluctuations locally initiate the phase transformation dynamics.…”

Marginal stability analysis of the phase field crystal model in one spatial dimension

“…It can be related to other continuum fields theories such as classical density-functional theory 8,9 and the atomic density function theory 10 . The PFC-model may also be considered as a conserved version of the Swift-Hohenberg equation and provides an efficient method for simulating liquid-solid transitions 11,12 , colloidal solidification 13 , dislocation motion and plasticity 14,15 , glass formation 16 , epitaxial growth 6,17 , grain boundary premelting 18 , surface reconstructions 19 , and grain boundary energies 20 .…”