Developments in determining the anisotropy of solid-liquid interfacial free energy

Interfacial free energy and its anisotropy are key to understanding both crystal nucleation and growth behavior. New methods for accurately determining these properties have been developed in the last few years, both theoretically and experimentally. However, there are many questions to be answered: how does the interfacial free energy (and particularly the anisotropy) depend upon material (or interatomic potential)? How does it depend upon crystalline structure? The latter is important in various suggestions that the easiest phase to nucleate from the melt may not be the thermodynamically stable phase.1–5 Do these properties depend upon the structure of the liquid? Recent developments have opened the door not only to new understanding, but to broader questions than could be previously addressed.