No Arabic abstract
Kinetics of separation between the low and high density phases in a single component Lennard-Jones model has been studied via molecular dynamics simulations, at a very low temperature, in the space dimension $d=2$. For densities close to the vapor (low density) branch of the coexistence curve, disconnected clusters of the high density phase exhibit ballistic motion, the kinetic energy distribution of the clusters being closely Maxwellian. Starting from nearly circular shapes, at the time of nucleation, these clusters grow via sticky collisions, gaining filament-like nonequilibrium structure at late times, with a very low fractal dimensionality. The origin of the latter is shown to lie in the low mobility of the constituent particles, in the corresponding cluster reference frame, due to the (quasi-long-range) crystalline order. Standard self-similarity in the domain pattern, typically observed in kinetics of phase transitions, is found to be absent in this growth process. This invalidates the common method, that provides a growth law same as in immiscible solid mixtures, of quantifying growth. An appropriate alternative approach, involving the fractality in the structure, quantifies the growth of the characteristic length to be a power-law with time, the exponent being surprisingly high. The observed growth law has been derived via a nonequilibrium kinetic theory.
A phase-field crystal model based on the density-field approach incorporating high-order interparticle direct correlations is developed to study vapor-liquid-solid coexistence and transitions within a single continuum description. Conditions for the realization of the phase coexistence and transition sequence are systematically analyzed and shown to be satisfied by a broad range of model parameters, demonstrating the high flexibility and applicability of the model. Both temperature-density and temperature-pressure phase diagrams are identified, while structural evolution and coexistence among the three phases are examined through dynamical simulations. The model is also able to produce some temperature and pressure related material properties, including effects of thermal expansion and pressure on equilibrium lattice spacing, and temperature dependence of saturation vapor pressure. This model can be used as an effective approach for investigating a variety of material growth and deposition processes based on vapor-solid, liquid-solid, and vapor-liquid-solid growth.
A description of phase separation kinetics for solid binary (A,B) mixtures in thin film geometry based on the Kawasaki spin-exchange kinetic Ising model is presented in a discrete lattice molecular field formulation. It is shown that the model describes the interplay of wetting layer formation and lateral phase separation, which leads to a characteristic domain size $ell(t)$ in the directions parallel to the confining walls that grows according to the Lifshitz-Slyozov $t^{1/3}$ law with time $t$ after the quench. Near the critical point of the model, the description is shown to be equivalent to the standard treatments based on Ginzburg-Landau models. Unlike the latter, the present treatment is reliable also at temperatures far below criticality, where the correlation length in the bulk is only of the order of a lattice spacing, and steep concentration variations may occur near the walls, invalidating the gradient square approximation. A further merit is that the relation to the interaction parameters in the bulk and at the walls is always transparent, and the correct free energy at low temperatures is consistent with the time evolution by construction.
We review understanding of kinetics of fluid phase separation in various space dimensions. Morphological differences, percolating or disconnected, based on overall composition in a binary liquid or density in a vapor-liquid system, have been pointed out. Depending upon the morphology, various possible mechanisms and corresponding theoretical predictions for domain growth are discussed. On computational front, useful models and simulation methodologies have been presented. Theoretically predicted growth laws have been tested via molecular dynamics simulations of vapor-liquid transitions. In case of disconnected structure, the mechanism has been confirmed directly. This is a brief review on the topic for a special issue on coarsening dynamics, expected to appear in Comptes Rendus Physique.
Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of two-dimensional (2D) materials such as monolayer MoS2 typically involves the conversion of vapor-phase precursors to a solid product in a process that may be described as a vapor-solid-solid (VSS) mode. Here, we report the first demonstration of vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) growth of monolayer MoS2 yielding highly crystalline ribbon-shaped structures with a width of a few tens of nanometers to a few micrometers. The VLS growth mode is triggered by the reaction between molybdenum oxide and sodium chloride, which results in the formation of molten Na-Mo-O droplets. These droplets mediate the growth of MoS2 ribbons in the crawling mode when saturated with sulfur on a crystalline substrate. Our growth yields straight and kinked ribbons with a locally well-defined orientation, reflecting the regular horizontal motion of the liquid droplets during growth. Using atomic-resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) and second harmonic generation (SHG) microscopy, we show that the ribbons are homoepitaxially on monolayer MoS2 surface with predominantly 2H- or 3R-type stacking. These findings pave the way to novel devices with structures of mixed dimensionalities.
We study numerically the phase-ordering kinetics following a temperature quench of the Ising model with single spin flip dynamics on a class of graphs, including geometrical fractals and random fractals, such as the percolation cluster. For each structure we discuss the scaling properties and compute the dynamical exponents. We show that the exponent $a_chi$ for the integrated response function, at variance with all the other exponents, is independent on temperature and on the presence of pinning. This universal character suggests a strict relation between $a_chi$ and the topological properties of the networks, in analogy to what observed on regular lattices.