Nucleation and growth of a stable phase in an Ising-type system

Abstract

A system of nearest-neighbor interacting spins driven by a Glauber-type dynamics on a two-dimensional hexagonal lattice was studied as a model for a first order phase transition. The primary goal of the study was to verify the kinetic aspects of the conventional nucleation and growth description which is associated with the motion of the interface, the growth and decay of individual nuclei, and with their size distributions. The role of time-dependent nucleation was highlighted, and the overall kinetics of the phase transition were examined. By an artificial modification of the dynamics in order to exclude some of the paths in the formation or destruction of nuclei, coagulation effects were studied. The latter have only minor influence in the immediate vicinity of the binodal, but increase rapidly upon intrusion into the metastable phase.