Diffusion-controlled anisotropic growth of stable and metastable crystal polymorphs in the phase-field crystal model

We use a simple density functional approach on a diffusional time scale, to address freezing to the body-centered cubic (bcc), hexagonal close-packed (hcp), and face-centered cubic (fcc) structures. We observe faceted equilibrium shapes and diffusion-controlled layerwise crystal growth consistent with two-dimensional nucleation. The predicted growth anisotropies are discussed in relation with results from experiment and atomistic simulations. We also demonstrate that varying the lattice constant of a simple cubic substrate, one can tune the epitaxially growing body-centered tetragonal structure between bcc and fcc, and observe a Mullins-Sekerka-Asaro-Tiller-Grinfeld-type instability.