Non-classical nucleation in supercooled nickel

The dynamics of homogeneous nucleation and growth of crystalline nickel from the supercooled melt is examined during rapid quenching using molecular dynamics and a modified embedded atom method potential. The character of the critical nuclei of the crystallization transition is examined using common neighbour analysis and visualization. At nucleation, the saddle point droplet consists of randomly stacked planar structures with an in-plane triangular order. These results support previous theories predicting that in the presence of long-range forces the critical nucleus is non-classical.