OSTWALD RIPENING IN A 2-DIMENSIONAL SYSTEM - CORRELATION-EFFECTS

We report results from an experimental study of coarsening in thin lay ers of succinonitrile in the presence of impurities. By quenching the latter from the liquid phase to different temperatures within the liqu id-solid coexistence region, different solid area fractions phi are ob tained. As phi is increased from 0.13 to 0.40, liquidlike order develo ps among the coarsening crystals due to diffusional interactions. The latter give rise to local correlations between the size and rate of gr owth of crystals within a neighbourhood of size xi(phi). We study thes e and compare our findings with recent theoretical models of coarsenin g.