PIRSA:13120010

Transition Pathways Connecting Stable and Metastable Phases

Shi, A. (2013). Transition Pathways Connecting Stable and Metastable Phases. Perimeter Institute. https://pirsa.org/13120010

Shi, An-Chang. Transition Pathways Connecting Stable and Metastable Phases. Perimeter Institute, Dec. 05, 2013, https://pirsa.org/13120010 

          @misc{ pirsa_13120010,
            doi = {},
            url = {https://pirsa.org/13120010},
            author = {Shi, An-Chang},
            keywords = {},
            language = {en},
            title = {Transition Pathways Connecting Stable and Metastable Phases},
            publisher = {Perimeter Institute},
            year = {2013},
            month = {dec},
            note = {PIRSA:13120010 see, \url{https://pirsa.org}}
          }

An-Chang Shi McMaster University

Collection Waterloo Soft Matter Theory
Talk Type Conference

Abstract

Phase transitions are ubiquitous in nature. Understanding the kinetic pathways of phase transitions has been a challenging problem in physics and physical chemistry. From a thermodynamics point of view, the kinetics of phase transitions is dictated by the characteristics of the free energy landscape. In particular, the emergence of a stable phase from a metastable phase follows specific paths, the minimum energy paths, on the free energy landscape. I will describe the characteristics of the minimum energy paths and introduce an efficient method, the string method, to construct them. I will use self-assembled phases of block copolymers as examples to demonstrate the power of the method. In particular, I will show how precisely determined transition pathways provide understanding and surprises when we try to connect the different ordered phases of block copolymers.