Nucleation and phase transition of decagonal quasicrystals

TL;DR

This paper investigates the nucleation and phase transition mechanisms of decagonal quasicrystals using a novel saddle search algorithm, revealing one-step and stepwise symmetry breaking modes with implications for understanding quasicrystal formation.

Contribution

It introduces the nullspace-preserving saddle search method for studying quasicrystal nucleation and transitions, specifically applied to decagonal quasicrystals within the Lifshitz-Petrich model.

Findings

Identified one-step and stepwise transition modes of DQC.

Demonstrated nucleation paths from liquid to DQC.

Analyzed symmetry breaking and recovery during phase transitions.

Abstract

In this work, we study the nucleation of quasicrystals from liquid or periodic crystals by developing an efficient order-order phase transition algorithm, namely the nullspace-preserving saddle search method. Specifically, we focus on nucleation and phase transitions of the decagonal quasicrystal (DQC) based on the Lifshitz-Petrich model. We present the nucleation path of DQC from the liquid and demonstrate one- and two-stage transition paths between DQC and periodic crystals. We provide a perspective of the group-subgroup phase transition and nucleation rates to understand the nucleation and phase transition mechanisms involving DQC. These results reveal the one-step and stepwise modes of symmetry breaking or recovery in the phase transition from DQC, where the stepwise modes are more probable.