title: Kinetic rougheninglike transition with finite nucleation barrier.
abstract: Recent observations of the growth of protein crystals have identified two different growth regimes. At low supersaturation, the surface of the crystal is smooth and increasing in size due to the nucleation of steps at defects and the subsequent growth of the steps. At high supersaturation, nucleation occurs at many places simultaneously, the crystal surface becomes rough, and the growth velocity increases more rapidly with increasing supersaturation than in the smooth regime. Kinetic roughening transitions are typically assumed to be due to the vanishing of the barrier for two-dimension nucleation on the surface of the crystal. We show here, by means of both analytic mean-field models and kinetic Monte Carlo simulations, that a transition between different growth modes reminiscent of kinetic roughening can also arise as a kinetic effect occurring at finite nucleation barriers.
authors.affiliation: Center for Nonlinear Phenomena and Complex Systems CP 231, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Blvd. du Triomphe, 1050 Brussels, Belgium. jlutsko@ulb.ac.be
authors.forename: James F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Lutsko
authors.forename: Vasileios
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Basios
authors.forename: Grégoire
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Nicolis
authors.forename: John J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Kozak
authors.forename: Mike
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sleutel
authors.forename: Dominique
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Maes
mesh_terms: D003460:Crystallization; D007700:Kinetics; D008956:Models, Chemical; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D012995:Solubility; D013499:Surface Properties; D013816:Thermodynamics