title: Macroscopic nucleation phenomena in continuum media with long-range interactions.
abstract: Nucleation, commonly associated with discontinuous transformations between metastable and stable phases, is crucial in fields as diverse as atmospheric science and nanoscale electronics. Traditionally, it is considered a microscopic process (at most nano-meter), implying the formation of a microscopic nucleus of the stable phase. Here we show for the first time, that considering long-range interactions mediated by elastic distortions, nucleation can be a macroscopic process, with the size of the critical nucleus proportional to the total system size. This provides a new concept of "macroscopic barrier-crossing nucleation". We demonstrate the effect in molecular dynamics simulations of a model spin-crossover system with two molecular states of different sizes, causing elastic distortions.
authors.affiliation: Computational Materials Science Center, National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0047, Japan. nishino.masamichi@nims.go
authors.forename: Masamichi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nishino
authors.forename: Cristian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Enachescu
authors.forename: Seiji
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Miyashita
authors.forename: Per Arne
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Rikvold
authors.forename: Kamel
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Boukheddaden
authors.forename: François
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Varret