Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Nucleation
We have performed MD simulation of heterogeneous nucleation of argon on platinum surface under a undercooling of 60K using LAMMPS. The argon vapor consists of 12844 atoms and the platinum substrate consists of 2024 atoms. Leonard –Jones potential function was used for interactions among argon atoms while pair-wise embedded-atom method (EAM) potential was used for platinum. Leonard –Jones potential was also used for argon – platinum interaction with modified potential parameters. The nucleation rate and nucleus size distribution are given in the figure below. The dashed lines in Fig.a indicate the rate of nucleation of clusters of various sizes. Our results agree well with the published MD study of argon nucleation.
