Heterogeneous and homogeneous nucleation compared: Rapid nucleation on microscopic impurities

We use computer simulation to calculate the rates of both homogeneous nucleation and heterogeneous nucleation on microscopic impurities. We do so in perhaps the simplest model of fluids and magnets: the two-dimensional Ising model. We expect our results to be qualitatively applicable to many simple and complex fluids. We find that heterogeneous nucleation on an impurity that is not only microscopic but also as small as possible, that is, a single fixed spin, is more than four orders of magnitude faster than homogeneous nucleation. The rate of heterogeneous nucleation then increases by a factor of approximately five for each additional fixed spin in the impurity. These results suggest that impurities as small as single molecules can result in homogeneous nucleation being irrelevant due to heterogeneous nucleation on these microscopic impurities being much faster.