An analysis of the kinetic critical nucleus size and of ‘runaway’ nucleation by Nishioka and Maksimov is shown to be flawed and an accurate version of their model is presented. The concept of runaway nucleation is valid only when the thermodynamic critical nucleus size is very small, containing only a few atoms/molecules, and in the regime where the capillarity model of a nucleus is highly suspect.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
NISHIOKAK.: Phys. Rev. E, 1995, 52E, 3263.
2.
NISHIOKAK. and MAKSIMOVI. L.: J. Cryst. Growth, 1996, 163, 1.
3.
MAKSIMOVI. L., SANADAM., and NISHIOKAK.: J. Chem. Phys., 2000, 113, 3323.
4.
LEGOUESF. K. and AARONSONH. H.: Acta Metall., 1984, 32, 1855.
5.
SOISSONF. and MARTING.: Phys. Rev. B, 2000, 62B, 203.
