Kinetic Theory of Crystallization

Abstract

A phenomenological approach is proposed to describe the variation with time of temperature and the amount of substance crystallized from the melt due to nucleation and nuclei growth. It is shown that depending on the heat withdrawal rate the set of relations for these values describes the main forms of transition from the liquid to the solid state, namely, common crystallization with maintenance of constant temperature at the melting point, spontaneous crystallization from supercooled state, and smooth transition to solid state without crystallizing, i.e. with glass formation, at critical cooling rates.