Domain coarsening via heat diffusion: A numerical study with the phase field model

Dipartimento di Matematica e Fisica, Università di Camerino, Via Madonna delle Carceri, I-62032 Camerino (MC), Italy

Received: 22 March 1996
Accepted: 8 October 1996

Abstract

The phase separation dynamics of an initially undercooled melt is studied numerically within the framework of the phase field model. We observe a behavior richer than the one expected for pure conserved or non-conserved order parameter models, due to the existence of two fields characterized by different time scales. We focus our attention on the late stage of the growth process, in which the evolution is dominated by the diffusion of the residual heat in the system and leads to a scaling regime characteristic of a conserved dynamics, with characteristic power law growth of the average domain size proportional to . Finally, we studied the solid-islands distribution function and found significant qualitative differences with the corresponding quantity relative to model B.