External force field-induced crystallization of amorphous materials: A molecular dynamics study

Abstract

This is the first investigation on the possibility of the isothermal crystallization induced by an external force field using molecular dynamics simulation. External cyclic forces with a DC bias are superimposed on the intermolecular forces, which govern the global behavior of molecules. It is discovered that field-enhanced movements of susceptor molecules can induce crystallization effectively without heating problem, the crystallization process becomes more efficient when the external cyclic force is shifted by a DC bias, a radial distribution function is a sufficient tool to observe the progress of the crystallization, and the optimal values for the external forces are close to the averaged intermolecular forces.