Heterogeneous nucleation on a surface with heterogeneous surface energy

TL;DR

This paper investigates how heterogeneity in surface energy affects heterogeneous nucleation, revealing that surface heterogeneity can significantly lower nucleation barriers, with implications for materials science and surface engineering.

Contribution

It introduces a model considering heterogeneous surface energy in nucleation, showing that heterogeneity can reduce nucleation barriers compared to homogeneous assumptions.

Findings

Surface heterogeneity lowers nucleation barriers.

Nucleation barrier reduction depends on heterogeneity patterns.

Heterogeneous surfaces can enhance nucleation rates.

Abstract

In the standard treatment of heterogeneous nucleation on a surface, the energy of the surface is assumed to be homogeneous. Often its value is obtained from some macroscopic measurement. We ask the question what happens if we consider the surface energy to be heterogeneous. This is a straightforward generalization and may realistically be important in a number of scenarios, e.g. when the phase forming the surface is a binary alloy, solid solution, in presence of self-organized or artifically created patterns on the surface. We examine the effects of surface heterogeneity in a few scenarios in a model system, 3D lattice Ising model. Utilizing umbrella sampling computer simulations we find the nucleation barrier can be significantly lowered in presence of surface heterogeneity, even if the average surface energy is kept constant.