title: Formation of metastable phases by spinodal decomposition.
abstract: Metastable phases may be spontaneously formed from other metastable phases through nucleation. Here we demonstrate the spontaneous formation of a metastable phase from an unstable equilibrium by spinodal decomposition, which leads to a transient coexistence of stable and metastable phases. This phenomenon is generic within the recently introduced scenario of the landscape-inversion phase transitions, which we experimentally realize as a structural transition in a colloidal crystal. This transition exhibits a rich repertoire of new phase-ordering phenomena, including the coexistence of two equilibrium phases connected by two physically different interfaces. In addition, this scenario enables the control of sizes and lifetimes of metastable domains. Our findings open a new setting that broadens the fundamental understanding of phase-ordering kinetics, and yield new prospects of applications in materials science.
authors.affiliation: Departament de Física de la Matèria Condensada, Universitat de Barcelona, Avinguda Diagonal 647, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.|Universitat de Barcelona Institute of Complex Systems (UBICS), Universitat de Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Ricard
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-1885-9177
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Alert
authors.affiliation: Departament de Física de la Matèria Condensada, Universitat de Barcelona, Avinguda Diagonal 647, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.|Universitat de Barcelona Institute of Complex Systems (UBICS), Universitat de Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.|Institut de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia, Universitat de Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Pietro
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-0813-8683
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Tierno
authors.affiliation: Departament de Física de la Matèria Condensada, Universitat de Barcelona, Avinguda Diagonal 647, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.|Universitat de Barcelona Institute of Complex Systems (UBICS), Universitat de Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Jaume
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Casademunt