Ostwald Ripening: Nonequilibrium liquid-solid thin layers

Quenching a liquid layer into the liquid-solid coexistence region, produces crystallites surrounded by their melt. Some of these crystals grow, while others shrink and disappear. In a dilute system (few crystals), the fate of a crystal is determined only by its radius. Crystals with a larger radius grow, while smaller ones shrink.

In a less dilute system, the fate of crystallites depends also on interactions with their neighbors.

Coarsening of crystallites surrounded by their melt

“Correlated Ostwarld Ripening in Two Dimensions”
O. Krichevsky and J. Stavans, Phys. Rev. Lett. 70, 1473-1476 (1993).

“Ostwald Ripening in a Two-Dimensional System:Correlation Effects”
O.Krichevsky and J. Stavans, Phys. Rev. E. 52, 2 (1995).

“Universality of persistence exponents in two dimensional Ostwald ripening”
J. Soriano, I. Braslavsky, D. Xu, O. Krichevsky and J. Stavans, Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 226101 (2009).