Enhanced Crystal Growth in Binary Lennard-Jones Mixtures

We study the crystal growth in binary Lennard-Jones mixtures by molecular dynamics simulations. Growth dynamics, the structure of the liquid-solid interfaces as well as droplet incorporation into the crystal vary with solution properties. For demixed systems we observe a strongly enhanced crystal growth at the cost of enclosed impurities. Furthermore, we find different interface morphologies depending on solubility. We relate our observations to growth mechanisms based on the Gibbs-Thomson effect as well as to predictions of the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang theory in 2+1 dimensions.