Molecular dynamics study of homogeneous nucleation for liquid rubidium

Abstract

Molecular dynamics has been used to study the dependence of homogeneous nucleation of the crystal on the rate with which the liquid is quenched, the initial state of the liquid and on the depth of the quench. A total of 54 simulations of quenching for a liquid rubidium system were performed and the dependence on these quantities of the time required for the onset of nucleation, the rate with which nucleation proceeds and the symmetry of the resulting crystal were determined. With the exception of the onset times for slow quenches, the results show an element of randomness in that the growth rates and the development of bcc or fcc structures do not correlate with quench rates, etc. For slow quench rates, the onset times show the C-shaped profile found experimentally in time-temperature trajectory studies of nucleation in strongly supercooled liquids.