Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Three-Dimensional Heterogeneous Nucleation

Nanoparticle growth based on three-dimensional heterogeneous nucleation was simulated by classical molecular dynamics. To collectively observe the effects of the dimension of seeds and thermodynamic conditions, seed size and system supersaturation ratio were the factors that were examined to see if they influenced the nucleation rates. Two stages were found to exist within the system, where the first stage is from the seed growth and the second from homogeneous nucleation. The Yasuoka-Matsumoto method was used to calculate the rates. The homogeneous nucleation characteristics coincided with the classical nucleation theory, but heterogeneous nucleation showed an irregular form, which at the current state cannot not be fully understood. Kinetic analysis was also performed to calculate the critical nucleus size and better understand the seed growth characteristics. All in all, the seed effects were insignificant to the overall nucleation characteristics for this system.