Formation of nucleation centers in a crystal
Brener E. A., Marchenko V. I.
A theory is derived for the critical nucleation center in the course of a first-order phase transition in a solid. The critical nucleation center turns out to be very oblate, because this shape lowers the elastic energy of the deformations which arise because of the difference between the densities of the two phases. The energy of formation of such this nucleation center is derived on the basis of an analogy with the crack problem. The possibility of a transition from nonspherical to spherical nucleation centers as the supersaturation increases is discussed.