SELF-ORGANIZATION OF GROWING AND DECAYING PARTICLES

Because of thermocapillary flow or other mechanisms, particles move in temperature and concentration gradients. In a system undergoing a fir st-order phase transition via nucleation and growth, such gradients ar e caused by particles themselves. This leads to a long-range interacti on in:which particles will attract or repel, depending on their growth rates. For the case of attraction, particles organize into clusters, while repelling particles form more uniform particle distributions whe re fluctuations are leveled out. The implications of this effect for m aterials processing are discussed.