Phase Separation under Ultra-Slow Cooling: Onset of Nucleation

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how ultra-slow cooling influences phase separation in binary mixtures, revealing stability bounds and emphasizing the experimental challenges in achieving stable diffusive demixing.

Contribution

It introduces a stability bound for diffusive demixing under slow cooling and argues its general applicability beyond the $$-model, highlighting experimental implications.

Findings

Stability bound for phase separation under slow cooling

Non-linear diffusion impacts on phase stability

Experimental precautions needed for stable demixing

Abstract

We discuss the interplay between a slow continuous drift of temperature, which induces continuous phase separation, and the non-linear diffusion term in the $\phi^4$-model for phase separation of a binary mixture. This leads to a bound for the stability of diffusive demixing. It is argued that these findings are not specific to the $\phi^4$ model, but that they always apply up to slight modifications of the bound. In practice stable diffusive demixing can only be achieved when special precautions are taken in experiments on real mixtures. Therefore, the recent observations on complex dynamical behavior in such systems should be considered as a new challenge for understanding generic features of phase-separating systems.