Assisted crystal growing by tempering metastable vapor-liquid fluids

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that applying temperature fluctuations can facilitate the growth of nearly monocrystalline fcc structures from metastable vapor-liquid fluids, offering a new pathway for crystal formation, especially in protein crystallization.

Contribution

It introduces a method of assisted crystal growth using temperature fluctuations to overcome metastability barriers, improving crystal quality and coherence.

Findings

Temperature fluctuations lead to nearly monocrystalline fcc structures.

The method enhances crystal growth from metastable liquids.

Potential applications in protein crystallization.

Abstract

The metastable vapor-liquid coexistence of short-range attractive fluids hinders the formation of crystal nuclei, which in turn makes difficult the progress of the system towards its vapor-solid ground state. In this letter we show that crystal growth can be assisted by imposing temperature fluctuations. By so doing the obtained solid is nearly a fcc monocrystal in contrast with the extreme polycrystalline structure obtained at low temperatures. The study is carried out by combining the replica exchange Monte Carlo method and the standard slab technique. The obtained results suggest a pathway for growing coherent crystals from the metastable liquid. This is particularly relevant for the crystallization of globular proteins.