Formation of metastable phases by spinodal decomposition.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 27713406.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms13067 and PMC identifier 5059762.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
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.