Capturing Heterogeneous Nucleation of Nanoscale Pits and Subsequent Crystal Shrinkage during Ostwald Ripening of a Metal Phosphate

It has been generally accepted that crystal shrinkage during Ostwald ripening can be understood simply as a reverse process of crystal growth, and as a result, little attention has been paid to shrinkage behavior. The entire microstructure of polycrystalline materials, however, forms as a consequence of both growing and shrinking crystals. Thus, scrutiny of shrinking characteristics in addition to growth aspects is essential for a complete understanding of the evolution of microstructure during Ostwald ripening. By capturing real-time in situ high-resolution electron micrographs at high temperature, we herein demonstrate the shrinkage behavior of nanocrystals embedded in a solid crystalline matrix during the ripening process of a metal phosphate. Unlike typical crystal growth behavior based on two-dimensional homogeneous nucleation, heterogeneous types of nucleation with nanoscale pits at solidsolid interfaces (or crystal edges) are observed to dominantly occur during shrinkage of the crystals. The findings of this study suggest that crystal shrinkage proceeds with a lower activation energy barrier than that of crystal growth, although both crystal growth and shrinkage take place at the same time during Ostwald ripening.