Liquid to solid nucleation via onion structure droplets

Abstract

We study homogeneous nucleation from a deeply quenched metastable liquid to a spatially modulated phase. We find, for a general class of density functional theories, that the universally favored nucleating droplet in dimensions $d\ge 3$ is spherically symmetric with radial modulations resembling the layers of an onion. The existence of this droplet has important implications for systems with effective long-range interactions, and potentially applies to polymers, plasmas, and metals.

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• Non-classical nucleation pathways in stacking-disordered crystals
• The Early Crystal Nucleation Process in Hard Spheres shows Synchronised Ordering and Densification
• Hydrodynamic theory of freezing: Nucleation and polycrystalline growth
• Crystallization: Colloidal suspense