2,640 research outputs found
Long wavelength properties of phase field crystal models with second order dynamics
The phase field crystal (PFC) approach extends the notion of phase field
models by describing the topology of the microscopic structure of a crystalline
material. One of the consequences is that local variation of the interatomic
distance creates an elastic excitation. The dynamics of these excitations poses
a challenge: pure diffusive dynamics cannot describe relaxation of elastic
stresses that happen through phonon emission. To this end, several different
models with fast dynamics have been proposed. In this article we use the
amplitude expansion of the PFC model to compare the recently proposed
hydrodynamic PFC amplitude model with two simpler models with fast dynamics. We
compare these different models analytically and numerically. The results
suggest that in order to have proper relaxation of elastic excitations, the
full hydrodynamical description of the PFC amplitudes is required.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure
Dynamical transitions and sliding friction of the phase-field-crystal model with pinning
We study the nonlinear driven response and sliding friction behavior of the
phase-field-crystal (PFC) model with pinning including both thermal
fluctuations and inertial effects. The model provides a continuous description
of adsorbed layers on a substrate under the action of an external driving force
at finite temperatures, allowing for both elastic and plastic deformations. We
derive general stochastic dynamical equations for the particle and momentum
densities including both thermal fluctuations and inertial effects. The
resulting coupled equations for the PFC model are studied numerically. At
sufficiently low temperatures we find that the velocity response of an
initially pinned commensurate layer shows hysteresis with dynamical melting and
freezing transitions for increasing and decreasing applied forces at different
critical values. The main features of the nonlinear response in the PFC model
are similar to the results obtained previously with molecular dynamics
simulations of particle models for adsorbed layers.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures, to appear in Physcial Review
Glassy phases and driven response of the phase-field-crystal model with random pinning
We study the structural correlations and the nonlinear response to a driving
force of a two-dimensional phase-field-crystal model with random pinning. The
model provides an effective continuous description of lattice systems in the
presence of disordered external pinning centers, allowing for both elastic and
plastic deformations. We find that the phase-field crystal with disorder
assumes an amorphous glassy ground state, with only short-ranged positional and
orientational correlations even in the limit of weak disorder. Under increasing
driving force, the pinned amorphous-glass phase evolves into a moving
plastic-flow phase and then finally a moving smectic phase. The transverse
response of the moving smectic phase shows a vanishing transverse critical
force for increasing system sizes
Phase-field-crystal models and mechanical equilibrium
Phase-field-crystal (PFC) models constitute a field theoretical approach to solidification, melting, and related phenomena at atomic length and diffusive time scales. One of the advantages of these models is that they naturally contain elastic excitations associated with strain in crystalline bodies. However, instabilities that are diffusively driven towards equilibrium are often orders of magnitude slower than the dynamics of the elastic excitations, and are thus not included in the standard PFC model dynamics. We derive a method to isolate the time evolution of the elastic excitations from the diffusive dynamics in the PFC approach and set up a two-stage process, in which elastic excitations are equilibrated separately. This ensures mechanical equilibrium at all times. We show concrete examples demonstrating the necessity of the separation of the elastic and diffusive time scales. In the small-deformation limit this approach is shown to agree with the theory of linear elasticity.Peer reviewe
Phase field crystal study of symmetric tilt grain boundaries of iron
We apply the phase field crystal model to study the structure and energy of symmetric tilt grain boundaries of bcc iron in 3D. The parameters for the model are obtained by using a recently developed eight-order fitting scheme [A. Jaatinen et al., (2009)]. The grain boundary free energies we obtain from the model are in good agreement with previous results from molecular dynamics simulations and experiments
Thermodynamics of bcc metals in phase-field-crystal models
We examine the influence of different forms of the free-energy functionals used in the phase-field-crystal (PFC) model, and compare them with the second-order density-functional theory (DFT) of freezing, by using bcc iron as an example case. We show that there are large differences between the PFC and the DFT and it is difficult to obtain reasonable parameters for existing PFC models directly from the DFT. Therefore, we propose a way of expanding the correlation function in terms of gradients that allows us to incorporate the bulk modulus of the liquid as an additional parameter in the theory. We show that this functional reproduces reasonable values for both bulk and surface properties of bcc iron, and therefore it should be useful in modeling bcc materials. As a further demonstration, we also calculate the grain boundary energy as a function of misorientation for a symmetric tilt boundary close to the melting transition.Peer reviewe
Phase Diagram and Commensurate-Incommensurate Transitions in the Phase Field Crystal Model with an External Pinning Potential
We study the phase diagram and the commensurate-incommensurate transitions in
a phase field model of a two-dimensional crystal lattice in the presence of an
external pinning potential. The model allows for both elastic and plastic
deformations and provides a continuum description of lattice systems, such as
for adsorbed atomic layers or two-dimensional vortex lattices. Analytically, a
mode expansion analysis is used to determine the ground states and the
commensurate-incommensurate transitions in the model as a function of the
strength of the pinning potential and the lattice mismatch parameter. Numerical
minimization of the corresponding free energy shows good agreement with the
analytical predictions and provides details on the topological defects in the
transition region. We find that for small mismatch the transition is of
first-order, and it remains so for the largest values of mismatch studied here.
Our results are consistent with results of simulations for atomistic models of
adsorbed overlayers
Induced P-wave Superfluidity in Asymmetric Fermi Gases
We show that two new intra-species P-wave superfluid phases appear in
two-component asymmetric Fermi systems with short-range S-wave interactions. In
the BEC limit, phonons of the molecular BEC induce P-wave superfluidity in the
excess fermions. In the BCS limit, density fluctuations induce P-wave
superfluidity in both the majority and the minority species. These phases may
be realized in experiments with spin-polarized Fermi gases.Comment: published versio
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