Athermal character of structural phase transitions.
The significance of thermal fluctuations in nucleation in structural first-order phase transitions has been examined. The prototypical case of martensitic transitions has been experimentally investigated by means of acoustic emission techniques. We propose a model based on the mean first-passage time to account for the experimental observations. Our study provides a unified framework to establish the conditions for isothermal and athermal transitions to be observed.
Pérez-Reche
F J
FJ
Departament d'Estructura i Constituents de la Matèria, Facultat de Física, Universitat de Barcelona, Diagonal, 647, E-08028 Barcelona, Catalonia.
Vives
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Mañosa
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