Non-clasical Nucleation in Supercooled Nickel

TL;DR

This study investigates the non-classical nucleation process of crystalline nickel from supercooled melt during rapid quenching, revealing that critical nuclei are composed of randomly stacked planar structures with triangular order, influenced by long-range forces.

Contribution

It provides molecular dynamics evidence of non-classical nucleation in nickel, highlighting the structure of critical nuclei and supporting theories involving long-range interactions.

Findings

Critical nuclei are randomly stacked planar structures with triangular order.

Nucleation process is non-classical due to long-range forces and spinodal effects.

Results align with theoretical predictions of non-classical nucleation in metals.

Abstract

The dynamics of homogeneous nucleation and growth of crystalline nickel from the super-cooled melt is examined during rapid quenching using molecular dynamics and a modified embedded atom method potential. The character of the critical nuclei of the crystallization transition is examined using common neighbor analysis and visualization. At nucleation the saddle point droplet consists of randomly stacked planar structures with an in plane triangular order. These results are consistent with previous theoretical results that predict that the nucleation process in some metals is non-classical due to the presence of long-range forces and a spinodal.