title: Step Crowding Effects Dampen the Stochasticity of Crystal Growth Kinetics.
abstract: Crystals grow by laying down new layers of material which can either correspond in size to the height of one unit cell (elementary steps) or multiple unit cells (macrosteps). Surprisingly, experiments have shown that macrosteps can grow under conditions of low supersaturation and high impurity density such that elementary step growth is completely arrested. We use atomistic simulations to show that this is due to two effects: the fact that the additional layers bias fluctuations in the position of the bottom layer towards growth and by a transition, as step height increases, from a 2D to a 3D nucleation mechanism.
authors.affiliation: Center for Nonlinear Phenomena and Complex Systems, Code Postal 231, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Boulevard du Triomphe, 1050 Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: James F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Lutsko
authors.affiliation: Structural Biology Brussels, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Alexander E S
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Van Driessche
authors.affiliation: Complex Multiphase Systems, Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Miguel A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Durán-Olivencia
authors.affiliation: Structural Biology Brussels, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Dominique
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Maes
authors.affiliation: Structural Biology Brussels, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Mike
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sleutel
mesh_terms: D003460:Crystallization; D007700:Kinetics; D008956:Models, Chemical; D013269:Stochastic Processes