Homogeneous Nucleation in Inhomogeneous Media I: Nucleation in a Temperature Gradient

TL;DR

This paper develops a formalism to analyze nucleation in inhomogeneous media, accounting for temperature gradients and the metastable phase's influence, with applications to condensation and polymer crystallization.

Contribution

It introduces a kinetic equation framework for nucleation in inhomogeneous environments, incorporating the metastable phase as a heat bath, advancing understanding of nucleation dynamics.

Findings

Derived a kinetic equation for cluster probability density in inhomogeneous media

Analyzed the influence of temperature gradients on nucleation rates

Applied the formalism to condensation and polymer crystallization scenarios

Abstract

We introduce a general formalism to analyze nucleation phenomena in inhomogeneous media which considers the influence of the metastable phase, which is treated as a heat bath in which clusters are embedded, in the dynamics of the nucleation process. A kinetic equation for the evolution of the probability density of the clusters, taking into account possible inhomogeneities in the bath, is derived using mesoscopic nonequilibrium thermodynamics. From it, we obtain the nucleation rate and analyze the role played by the metastable phase in the process. We discuss in particular condensation and polymer crystallization in a temperature gradient.