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Open access
Sep 2026
Liquid-state orientational precursors bias crystal polymorph nucleation.
How crystals emerge from supercooled liquids remains a central problem in condensed-matter physics and a paradigm of first-order phase transitions under metastable conditions. Supercooled liquids often form crystal nuclei that are not the thermodynamically most stable solid, in a manner that cannot be attributed solely...
Si-Min An, Peng-Fei Guan, Xian Zhang et al.
· Proceedings of the National... · 0 citations
Preprint
Sep 2026
The Role of Concentration in Determining NaCl Nucleation Mechanism: A Story of Pathways Coexistence
Deciphering the microscopic details of crystal nucleation remains a key open problem in chemical physics. For aqueous sodium chloride (NaCl), the extent to which nucleation involves amorphous ion aggregation, and the supersaturation regime in which two-step-like behavior emerges, remains actively debated. In this work,...
Porhouy Minh, Sapna Sarupria
· 0 citations
Open access
Apr 2025
Crystal nucleation and growth in high-entropy alloys revealed by atomic electron tomography.
High-entropy alloys combine multiple principal elements and can exhibit exceptional mechanical properties and catalytic activity. However, how they crystallize remains poorly understood because early nuclei are small, transient and chemically complex. Here we advance atomic electron tomography to determine the three-di...
Ya-Kun Yuan, S. Moniri, Yao Yang et al.
· Nature Materials · 1 citation
Preprint
Aug 2026
Oxygen stoichiometry directs rutile-anatase phase selection through kinetic control of nucleation
Synthesis of a target polymorph remains more empirical than predictive because crystallization often selects the most accessible nucleation pathway rather than the thermodynamically most stable phase. Here, we show that oxygen stoichiometry converts this empirical synthesis variable into a kinetic control parameter for...
Han Lee, H. Kim, J. Kim et al.
· 0 citations
Preprint
Sep 2026
5DSTEM of Liquid-Phase Nanocrystal Growth Bridges Ensemble Kinetics and Nanoscale Dynamics
Resolving how ensemble growth kinetics emerge from particle- and grain-level dynamics is essential for predictive control of nanocrystal synthesis. Here, time-resolved four-dimensional scanning transmission electron microscopy (4DSTEM), extended into five dimensions (5DSTEM) through continuous acquisition, is used to s...
Serin Lee, C. Ophus, Jennifer A. Dionne
· 0 citations
Open access
Sep 2026
The Birth of Crystals in Solution at Submillisecond Time Scales: Spinodal Decomposition into a Transient Viscoelastic Reactant-Rich Liquid
Understanding crystallization from solution is essential to natural and industrial processes. In contrast to the mechanism envisioned in classical nucleation theory, crystallization from solution frequently proceeds after liquid–liquid phase separation (LLPS) into transient reactant-rich liquid structures that subseq...
Jade Raimbault, Pierre-Baptiste Flandrin, F. Gobeaux et al.
· Journal of the American Chem... · 0 citations