Abstract
We determine the free energy barrier, critical nucleus size, and kinetics of a Janus particle solid-solid transition by nucleation and growth of lamellar clusters within a metastable rotator phase. The transition involves negligible change in particle position and phase volume and entails only particle orientational ordering. Fast kinetics enable the analysis of unbiased crystal growth and shrinkage trajectories from Brownian dynamic simulations. By fitting simulation trajectories to a diffusion-migration equation, the nucleus free energy and growth coefficient as a function of nucleus size are extracted. Observed transition times are on the order of hundreds of characteristic particle rotation times. Lamellar crystal nuclei are oblate rather than spherical, but otherwise classical nucleation theory applies, with the bulk free energy contribution following closely the Maier-Saupe theory for purely orientational transitions and the interfacial energy contribution following trends from 3-dimensional Ising spin kinetics.
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