Spinodal-assisted nucleation during symmetry-breaking phase transitions

Abstract

The kinetics of spinodal-assisted crystallization in a region of the phase diagram where the dynamics is controlled by the critical slow down was studied by means of a Cahn-Hilliard model. The length-scale selectivity conducted by the spinodal process led to the formation of a filamentary network of density fluctuations that resemble the scarred states found in quantum-chaos systems. The present work reveals that the early structure of density fluctuations acts such as a precursor for crystallization and deeply affects the orientational and translational correlation between growing crystals. At deep quenches the network of fluctuations is deeply modified and the classical picture of spinodal decomposition is recovered.