Thermodynamics, formation dynamics, and structural correlations in the bulk amorphous phase of the phase-field crystal model.

We investigate bulk thermodynamic and microscopic structural properties of amorphous solids in the framework of the phase-field crystal (PFC) model. These are metastable states with a non-uniform density distribution, having no long-range order. From extensive numerical simulations, we determine the distribution of free energy density values in varying size amorphous systems and also the point-to-set correlation length, which is the radius of the largest volume of amorphous one can take while still having the particle arrangements within the volume determined by the particle ordering at the surface of the chosen volume.

Phase-Field Modeling of Biomineralization in Mollusks and Corals: Microstructure vs Formation Mechanism.

While biological crystallization processes have been studied on the microscale extensively, there is a general lack of models addressing the mesoscale aspects of such phenomena. In this work, we investigate whether the phase-field theory developed in materials' science for describing complex polycrystalline structures on the mesoscale can be meaningfully adapted to model crystallization in biological systems. We demonstrate the abilities of the phase-field technique by modeling a range of microstructures observed in mollusk shells and coral skeletons, including granular, prismatic, sheet/columnar nacre, and sprinkled spherulitic structures.

Dynamical Density Functional Theory for the Drying and Stratification of Binary Colloidal Dispersions.

We develop a dynamical density functional theory based model for the drying of colloidal films on planar surfaces. We consider mixtures of two different sizes of hard-sphere colloids. Depending on the solvent evaporation rate and the initial concentrations of the two species, we observe varying degrees of stratification in the final dried films.

Phase-field modelling of the effect of density change on solidification revisited: model development and analytical solutions for single component materials.

In this paper the development of a physically consistent phase-field theory of solidification shrinkage is presented. The coarse-grained hydrodynamic equations are derived directly from the N-body Hamiltonian equations in the framework of statistical physics, while the constitutive relations are developed in the framework of the standard phase-field theory, by following the variational formalism and the principles of non-equilibrium thermodynamics. To enhance the numerical practicality of the model, quasi-incompressible hydrodynamic equations are derived, where sound waves are absent (but density change is still possible), and therefore the time scale of solidification is accessible in numerical simulations.

Hydrodynamic theory of freezing: Nucleation and polycrystalline growth.

Structural aspects of crystal nucleation in undercooled liquids are explored using a nonlinear hydrodynamic theory of crystallization proposed recently [G. I. Tóth et al.

Phase-field modeling of isothermal quasi-incompressible multicomponent liquids.

In this paper general dynamic equations describing the time evolution of isothermal quasi-incompressible multicomponent liquids are derived in the framework of the classical Ginzburg-Landau theory of first order phase transformations. Based on the fundamental equations of continuum mechanics, a general convection-diffusion dynamics is set up first for compressible liquids. The constitutive relations for the diffusion fluxes and the capillary stress are determined in the framework of gradient theories.

Phase-field theory of multicomponent incompressible Cahn-Hilliard liquids.

In this paper, a generalization of the Cahn-Hilliard theory of binary liquids is presented for multicomponent incompressible liquid mixtures. First, a thermodynamically consistent convection-diffusion-type dynamics is derived on the basis of the Lagrange multiplier formalism. Next, a generalization of the binary Cahn-Hilliard free-energy functional is presented for an arbitrary number of components, offering the utilization of independent pairwise equilibrium interfacial properties.

Phase field modelling of spinodal decomposition in the oil/water/asphaltene system.

In this paper the quantitative applicability of van der Sman/van der Graaf type Ginzburg-Landau theories of surfactant assisted phase separation [van der Sman et al., Rheol. Acta, 2006, 46, 3] is studied for real systems displaying high surfactant concentrations at the liquid-liquid interface.

Analysis of Ginzburg-Landau-type models of surfactant-assisted liquid phase separation.

In this paper diffuse interface models of surfactant-assisted liquid-liquid phase separation are addressed. We start from the generalized version of the Ginzburg-Landau free-energy-functional-based model of van der Sman and van der Graaf. First, we analyze the model in the constant surfactant approximation and show the presence of a critical point at which the interfacial tension vanishes.

Heterogeneous nucleation of/on nanoparticles: a density functional study using the phase-field crystal model.

Crystallization of supersaturated liquids usually starts by heterogeneous nucleation. Mounting evidence shows that even homogeneous nucleation in simple liquids takes place in two steps; first a dense amorphous precursor forms, and the crystalline phase appears via heterogeneous nucleation in/on the precursor cluster. Herein, we review recent results by a simple dynamical density functional theory, the phase-field crystal model, for (precursor-mediated) homogeneous and heterogeneous nucleation of nanocrystals.

Nonlinear hydrodynamic theory of crystallization.

We present an isothermal fluctuating nonlinear hydrodynamic theory of crystallization in molecular liquids. A dynamic coarse-graining technique is used to derive the velocity field, a phenomenology which allows a direct coupling between the free energy functional of the classical density functional theory and the Navier-Stokes equation. In contrast to the Ginzburg-Landau type amplitude theories, the dynamic response to elastic deformations is described by parameter-free kinetic equations.

Heterogeneous crystal nucleation: the effect of lattice mismatch.

A simple dynamical density functional theory is used to investigate freezing of an undercooled liquid in the presence of a crystalline substrate. We find that the adsorption of the crystalline phase on the substrate, the contact angle, and the height of the nucleation barrier are nonmonotonic functions of the lattice constant of the substrate. We show that the free-growth-limited model of particle-induced freezing by Greer et al.

Amorphous nucleation precursor in highly nonequilibrium fluids.

Dynamical density-functional simulations reveal structural aspects of crystal nucleation in undercooled liquids: The first appearing solid is amorphous, which promotes the nucleation of bcc crystals but suppresses the appearance of the fcc and hcp phases. These findings are associated with features of the effective interaction potential deduced from the amorphous structure.

Faceting and branching in 2D crystal growth.

Using atomic scale time-dependent density functional calculations we confirm that both diffusion-controlled and diffusionless crystallization modes exist in simple 2D systems. We provide theoretical evidence that a faceted to nonfaceted transition is coupled to these crystallization modes, and faceting is governed by the local supersaturation at the fluid-crystalline interface. We also show that competing modes of crystallization have a major influence on mesopattern formation.

Polymorphism, crystal nucleation and growth in the phase-field crystal model in 2D and 3D.

We apply a simple dynamical density functional theory, the phase-field crystal (PFC) model of overdamped conservative dynamics, to address polymorphism, crystal nucleation, and crystal growth in the diffusion-controlled limit. We refine the phase diagram for 3D, and determine the line free energy in 2D and the height of the nucleation barrier in 2D and 3D for homogeneous and heterogeneous nucleation by solving the respective Euler-Lagrange (EL) equations. We demonstrate that, in the PFC model, the body-centered cubic (bcc), the face-centered cubic (fcc), and the hexagonal close-packed structures (hcp) compete, while the simple cubic structure is unstable, and that phase preference can be tuned by changing the model parameters: close to the critical point the bcc structure is stable, while far from the critical point the fcc prevails, with an hcp stability domain in between.

Crystal nucleation in the hard-sphere system revisited: a critical test of theoretical approaches.

The hard-sphere system is the best known fluid that crystallizes: the solid-liquid interfacial free energy, the equations of state, and the height of the nucleation barrier are known accurately, offering a unique possibility for a quantitative validation of nucleation theories. A recent significant downward revision of the interfacial free energy from approximately 0.61kT/sigma(2) to (0.

Phase field theory of interfaces and crystal nucleation in a eutectic system of fcc structure: II. Nucleation in the metastable liquid immiscibility region.

In the second part of our paper, we address crystal nucleation in the metastable liquid miscibility region of eutectic systems that is always present, though experimentally often inaccessible. While this situation resembles the one seen in single component crystal nucleation in the presence of a metastable vapor-liquid critical point addressed in previous works, it is more complex because of the fact that here two crystal phases of significantly different compositions may nucleate. Accordingly, at a fixed temperature below the critical point, six different types of nuclei may form: two liquid-liquid nuclei: two solid-liquid nuclei; and two types of composite nuclei, in which the crystalline core has a liquid "skirt," whose composition falls in between the compositions of the solid and the initial liquid phases, in addition to nuclei with concentric alternating composition shells of prohibitively high free energy.

Phase field theory of interfaces and crystal nucleation in a eutectic system of fcc structure: I. Transitions in the one-phase liquid region.

The phase field theory (PFT) has been applied to predict equilibrium interfacial properties and nucleation barrier in the binary eutectic system Ag-Cu using double well and interpolation functions deduced from a Ginzburg-Landau expansion that considers fcc (face centered cubic) crystal symmetries. The temperature and composition dependent free energies of the liquid and solid phases are taken from CALculation of PHAse Diagrams-type calculations. The model parameters of PFT are fixed so as to recover an interface thickness of approximately 1 nm from molecular dynamics simulations and the interfacial free energies from the experimental dihedral angles available for the pure components.