Dynamical mechanism for the formation of metastable phases
- 2 September 1991
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review Letters
- Vol. 67 (10), 1266-1269
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.67.1266
Abstract
Rapid temperature quenches have long been known to produce metastable thermodynamic phases. We study Landau-Ginzburg models of phase transitions for free energies having three local minima and show that metastable phases can be formed via a dynamic instability that splits the front separating the stable high- and low-temperature phases. Even though quenching may nucleate the stable phase, the splitting instability we discuss will favor the formation of the metastable phase.Keywords
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