Two-step nucleation of the Earth's inner core

TL;DR

This study proposes a two-step nucleation mechanism for Earth's inner core, where metastable bcc iron nucleation precedes hcp formation, resolving the nucleation paradox and offering insights into core structure and anisotropy.

Contribution

It introduces a novel two-step nucleation model involving bcc phase, challenging previous assumptions about direct hcp nucleation in Earth's inner core.

Findings

Metastable bcc phase has higher nucleation rate than hcp under core conditions.

Two-step nucleation reduces the required undercooling for inner core formation.

This mechanism helps explain the inner core's structure and anisotropy.

Abstract

It has long been assumed the Earth's solid inner core started to grow when molten iron cooled to its melting point. However, the nucleation mechanism, which is a necessary step of crystallization, has not been well understood. Recent studies found it requires an unrealistic degree of undercooling to nucleate the stable hexagonal close-packed (hcp) phase of iron, which can never be reached under the actual Earth's core conditions. This contradiction leads to the inner core nucleation paradox [1]. Here, using a persistent-embryo method and molecular dynamics simulations, we demonstrate that the metastable body-centered cubic (bcc) phase of iron has a much higher nucleation rate than the hcp phase under inner-core conditions. Thus, the bcc nucleation is likely to be the first step of inner core formation instead of direct nucleation of the hcp phase. This mechanism reduces the required undercooling of iron nucleation, which provides a key factor to solve the inner-core nucleation paradox. The two-step nucleation scenario of the inner core also opens a new avenue for understanding the structure and anisotropy of the present inner core.