Crystal-liquid interfacial free energy via thermodynamic integration
- Institut für Theoretische Physik II: Soft Matter, Heinrich Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Universitätsstraße 1, 40225 Düsseldorf (Germany)
A novel thermodynamic integration (TI) scheme is presented to compute the crystal-liquid interfacial free energy (γ{sub cl}) from molecular dynamics simulation. The scheme is applied to a Lennard-Jones system. By using extremely short-ranged and impenetrable Gaussian flat walls to confine the liquid and crystal phases, we overcome hysteresis problems of previous TI schemes that stem from the translational movement of the crystal-liquid interface. Our technique is applied to compute γ{sub cl} for the (100), (110), and (111) orientation of the crystalline phase at three temperatures under coexistence conditions. For one case, namely, the (100) interface at the temperature T = 1.0 (in reduced units), we demonstrate that finite-size scaling in the framework of capillary wave theory can be used to estimate γ{sub cl} in the thermodynamic limit. Thereby, we show that our TI scheme is not associated with the suppression of capillary wave fluctuations.
- OSTI ID:
- 22419961
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Chemical Physics, Vol. 141, Issue 4; Other Information: (c) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0021-9606
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Temperature dependence of the crystal-liquid interfacial free energy and the endpoint of the melting line
On the determination of phase boundaries via thermodynamic integration across coexistence regions