Some Aspects of Spinodal Decomposition in Spinel Solid Solutions

A closer look at arrested spinodal decomposition in protein solutions.

Concentrated aqueous solutions of the protein lysozyme undergo a liquid-solid transition upon a temperature quench into the unstable spinodal region below a characteristic arrest temperature of T(f) = 15 °C. We use video microscopy and ultra-small angle light scattering in order to investigate the arrested structures as a function of initial concentration, quench temperature and rate of the tem...

Spinodal decomposition in microemulsions

Cation distributions and thermodynamic properties of binary spinel solid solutions

A general model is presented to enable the calculation of the cation distribution and thermodynamic properties of any binary solid solution between oxide spinels containing 2*, 3* and 4* cations. The model includes the effect ofdisordering enthalpy which depends linearly on the degree of disorder. In addition there are important contributions to the thermodynamic properties from the size mismat...

Parallel Spinodal Decomposition

Spinodal decomposition encompasses the ordering dynamics of thermodynamically unstable phases. An example of spinodal decomposition is the separation of the metals in a binary alloy. Because physicists have been unable to develop a fully coherent, consistent , and calculable theory on spinodal decomposition, computational studies have served as valuable sources of information. However, since th...

Quantum spinodal decomposition.

We study the process of spinodal decomposition in a scalar quantum field theory that is quenched from an equilibrium disordered initial state at Ti > Tf to a final state at Tf ≈ 0. The process of formation and growth of correlated domains is studied in a Hartree approximation. We find an approximate scaling law for the size of the domains ξD(t) ≈ √ tξ0 at long times for weakly coupled theories,...