Phase-field approach to heterogeneous nucleation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a phase-field model incorporating thermal noise to simulate heterogeneous nucleation and growth, enabling systematic analysis of imperfections and various physical phenomena.

Contribution

The work presents a versatile phase-field approach that can model both homogeneous and heterogeneous nucleation, including effects of imperfections and other physical processes.

Findings

Model effectively describes heterogeneous nucleation with imperfections

Applicable to island formation and amorphous crystallization

Systematic investigation of impurity effects

Abstract

We consider the problem of heterogeneous nucleation and growth. The system is described by a phase field model in which the temperature is included through thermal noise. We show that this phase field approach is suitable to describe homogeneous as well as heterogeneous nucleation starting from several general hypotheses. Thus we can investigate the influence of grain boundaries, localized impurities, or any general kind of imperfections in a systematic way. We also put forward the applicability of our model to study other physical situations such as island formation, amorphous crystallization, or recrystallization.