Effect of the surface-stimulated mode on the kinetics of homogeneous crystal nucleation in droplets

TL;DR

This paper develops a kinetic theory for homogeneous crystal nucleation in droplets, considering both volume-based and surface-stimulated modes, and shows that surface effects can significantly increase nucleation rates.

Contribution

It introduces a kinetic framework for surface-stimulated crystal nucleation, expanding upon thermodynamic models and providing explicit rate expressions.

Findings

Surface-stimulated nucleation can significantly enhance nucleation rates in droplets.

Nucleation can occur homogeneously in the subsurface layer before becoming surface-stimulated.

The theory suggests measurable effects in droplets as large as 10 microns.

Abstract

A kinetic theory of homogeneous crystal nucleation in unary droplets is presented taking into account that a crystal nucleus can form not only in the volume-based mode (with all its facets within the droplet) but also in the surface-stimulated one (with one of its facets at the droplet surface). The previously developed thermodynamics of surface-stimulated crystal nucleation rigorously showed that if at least one of the facets of the crystal is only partially wettable by its melt, then it is thermodynamically more favorable for the nucleus to form with that facet at the droplet surface rather than within the droplet. So far, however, the kinetic aspects of this phenomenon had not been studied at all. The theory proposed in the present paper advocates that even in the surface-stimulated mode crystal nuclei initially emerge (as sub-critical clusters) homogeneously in the sub-surface layer, not "pseudo-heterogeneously" at the surface. A homogeneously emerged sub-critical crystal can become a surface-stimulated nucleus due to density and structure fluctuations. This effect contributes to the total rate of crystal nucleation (as the volume-based mode does). An explicit expression for the total per-particle rate of crystal nucleation is derived. Numerical evaluations for water droplets suggest that the surface-stimulated mode can significantly enhance the per-particle rate of crystal nucleation in droplets as large as 10 microns in radius. Possible experimental verification of the proposed theory is discussed.