Experimental Observation and Computer Simulations of 3D Triplet Structures in Diffusion Limited Growth of Xenon Crystals

Abstract

Changes of growth morphologies are induced by a perturbation of the thermal diffusion field in the surrounding melt of a growing xenon crystal. Apart from the dendritic morphology, seaweed and doublon morphologies and for the first time transitions from dendritic to triplet structures (first predicted by T. Abel, E. Brener, and H. Müller-Krumbhaar [Phys. Rev. E 55, 7789 (1997)10.1103/PhysRevE.55.7789] were observed experimentally. With 3D phase-field simulations it was possible to reproduce the experimental procedure and to verify that triplet structures can grow in a stable way even in the presence of anisotropic surface free energy as found for experimental substances.