Scenarios of heterogeneous nucleation and growth studied by cell dynamics simulation

The dynamics of phase transformation due to homogeneous nucleation has long been analyzed using the classic Kolmogorov-Johnson-Mehl-Avrami (KJMA) theory. However, the dynamics of phase transformation due to heterogeneous nucleation has not been studied systematically even though it is vitally important technologically. In this report, we study the dynamics of heterogeneous nucleation theoretically and systematically using the phenomenological time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau (TDGL)-type model combined with the cell dynamics method. In this study we focus on the dynamics of phase transformation when the material is sandwiched by two supporting substrates. This model is supposed to simulates phase change storage media. Since both homogeneous and heterogeneous nucleation can occur simultaneously, we predict a few scenarios of phase transformation including: homogeneous-nucleation regime, heterogeneous-nucleation regime, and the homogeneous-heterogeneous coexistence regime. These predictions are directly confirmed by numerical simulation using the TDGL model. The outcome of the study was that the KJMA formula has limited use when heterogeneous nucleation exist, but it could still give some information about the microscopic mechanism of phase transformation at various stages during phase transformation.