Department of Physics and Institute of Materials Science and Engineering, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63130, USA.
Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, Lensfield Road, Cambridge CB2 1EW, United Kingdom.
J Chem Phys. 2016 Dec 7;145(21):211501. doi: 10.1063/1.4967522.
Many phenomena in the world around us depend on infrequent, yet short-lived, events that completely alter how a system subsequently develops in time. In the physical sciences, there are many examples of such crucial "rare events." Among the most important of these are nucleation processes, in which, due to a rare fluctuation, a new phase forms spontaneously within a meta-stable parent phase. Because nucleation processes are both rare and rapid and happen on a microscopic spatial scale, their experimental study is challenging. In recent years, there have been major developments both in the experimental study of nucleation phenomena and in the numerical simulation of such processes. As the articles in this special issue demonstrate, these recent advances in the ability to probe nucleation phenomena have transformed our understanding of the field.
我们周围世界中的许多现象都依赖于罕见但短暂的事件，这些事件完全改变了系统随后随时间的发展方式。在物理科学中，有许多这样至关重要的“罕见事件”的例子。其中最重要的是成核过程，在成核过程中，由于罕见的涨落，新相在亚稳母相中自发形成。由于成核过程既罕见又迅速，并且发生在微观空间尺度上，因此其实验研究具有挑战性。近年来，在成核现象的实验研究和此类过程的数值模拟方面都取得了重大进展。正如本特刊中的文章所表明的那样，这些在探测成核现象方面的最新进展改变了我们对该领域的理解。
