Remarkable nuances of crystallization: From ordinary crystal nucleation to rival mechanisms of crystallite coalescence

Abstract

© 2019 Elsevier B.V. Crystal growth and crystal coalescence processes in supercooled systems strongly depend on the concentration of crystallization centers. We perform atomistic dynamics simulations of the crystallization process in the ultrathin metallic film at different supercooling levels corresponding to supercooled liquid and amorphous solid states. Scaled relations are applied to identify the characteristic regimes in the time-dependent crystalline nuclei concentration: steady-state nucleation regime, saturation regime and coalescence regime. We show that the crystal growth at the saturation regime appears due to mixing nucleation and coalescence processes. We find that the crystallite coalescence realizes mainly through the mechanism of restructurization/absorption of crystal nuclei, whereas the mechanism of oriented attachment is manifested only at low levels of supercooling.