Berlin 2018 – scientific programme
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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik
CPP 70: Crystallization, Nucleation and Self-Assembly II
CPP 70.2: Talk
Thursday, March 15, 2018, 15:30–15:45, C 230
Free energy barriers for crystal nucleation from fluid phases — •Peter Koß1,2, Antonia Statt3, Peter Virnau1,2, and Kurt Binder1 — 1Institut für Physik, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Staudingerweg 9, 55128 Mainz, Germany — 2Graduate School of Excellence Materials Science in Mainz, Staudinger Weg 9, 55128 Mainz, Germany — 3Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
A fluid in equilibrium, confined in a finite volume, with a density exceeding the onset of freezing, may exhibit phase coexistence with a crystal nucleus surrounded by liquid or a gas. Classical nucleation theory predicts that the barrier of homogeneous nucleation is comprised of two contributions, the free energy gained by the creation of a crystal droplet and the free energy loss due to surface tension of the newly created interface. We obtain the excess free energy due to the surface of the crystalline nucleus by using a computational method suitable for the estimation of the chemical potential of dense fluids. Our analysis method is appropriate for crystal nuclei of all shapes, without suffering from ambiguities occurring when one needs a microscopic identification of the crystalline droplet. We present an analysis method to determine the coexistence pressure between fluid and crystal, and the nucleation barrier for a soft version of the effective Asakura-Oosawa model at ηpr=0.1, 0.2 and 0.28 [1].
[1] P. Koß, A. Statt, P. Virnau, and K. Binder, Phys. Rev. E 96, 042609 (2017)