Solid-Liquid Interfaces: Molecular Structure, Thermodynamics, and Crystallization
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Solid–Liquid
Interfaces: Molecular Structure, Thermodynamics, and Crystallization Mark Asta, Frans Spaepen, and J. Friso van der Veen, Guest Editors
Abstract Materials phenomena ranging from the melting or freezing of ice to biomineralization in living organisms, to lubrication and the commercial casting of superalloys, are known to be critically influenced by molecular-scale structure and processes occurring at the interfaces between the crystalline solid and liquid phases. The properties of solid–liquid interfaces have long been a topic of intense interest in materials science, primarily because of their role in governing nucleation, growth, and morphological evolution in crystal growth from the melt or solutions. This issue of the MRS Bulletin provides an overview, highlighting new developments in experiment, theory, and modeling techniques that have led to substantial recent progress in the characterization of the molecular-level structural and thermodynamic properties of solid–liquid interfaces and their consequences for a variety of crystallization phenomena. Keywords: crystallization, molecular structure, solid–liquid interfaces, thermodynamics.
Over the past two decades, intense practical interest in vapor-phase crystal growth has motivated the development of an advanced understanding of the molecularlevel structure, thermodynamics, and kinetic properties of solid–vapor surfaces. Detailed investigations of crystal surfaces have been made possible by the development and application of powerful scanning probe and electron microscopies, surfacesensitive x-ray characterization techniques, and advanced atomistic, mesoscopic, and continuum-level theoretical tools. In contrast to the situation for solid–vapor surfaces, a molecular-level understanding of solid–liquid interfacial properties has remained substantially less developed. This situation can be attributed in part to the inherent difficulties associated with experimental characterizations of “buried” interfaces between two condensed phases. In
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addition, theoretical and simulation studies of solid–liquid interfaces require as a prerequisite the ability to accurately model the structural properties of both crystalline and fluid phases; system-specific theoretical studies have remained few in number, with the most detailed work being devoted to model systems with relatively simple interatomic interactions. Despite the inherent challenges associated with molecular-level studies of solid– liquid interfaces, over the past decade a number of developments in experimental and simulation methods have been realized that are leading to rapid progress. It is the intent of this issue of MRS Bulletin to present some highlights of recent work in this area, focusing in particular on issues germane to the understanding of phenomena related to crystallization from the melt or solutions across a broad class of materials systems.
Traditionally, solid–liquid interfaces are characterized by the degree of structural order that they exhibit. “Smooth,” or faceted, interfac
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