https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2020-10367-y
Regular Article
The role of local bond-order at crystallization in a simple supercooled liquid
DNRF Centre “Glass and Time”, IMFUFA, Department of Sciences, Roskilde University, Postbox 260,
DK-4000
Roskilde, Denmark
a e-mail: st@ruc.dk
Received:
20
July
2020
Received in final form:
7
September
2020
Accepted:
9
September
2020
Published online: 4 November 2020
Large scale Molecular Dynamics simulations of 65 systems with N = 80 000 Lennard–Jones particles at two different supercooled liquid state points reveal, that the supercooled states contain spatially heterogeneous distributed subdomains of particles with significant higher bond-order than the mean bond-order in the supercooled liquid. The onset of the crystallization starts in such an area with relatively high six-fold bond-order for a supercooled state, but low bond-order for a fcc crystal state, and the crystallization is initiated by a nucleus where all particles in the critical nucleus have a significant lower bond-order than in a fcc crystal. The critical nucleus of N ≈ 70 particles is surrounded by many hundreds of particles with relatively high supercooled liquid bond-order and many of these particles are aligned with the crystal ordered particles in the critical nucleus. The crystallizations are very fast and supported by a fast growth of the supercooled areas with relative high liquid bond-order. The crystallizations are to fcc crystals, but a significant part of the crystallizations exhibit five-fold arrangements of polycrystalline subdomains mainly with fcc crystal order and sign of hcp crystallites.
Key words: Solid State and Materials
© EDP Sciences / Società Italiana di Fisica / Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature, 2020