Field Theoretic Method in Phase Transformations (Lecture Notes in Physics, 1016)

This book describes a novel and popular method for the theoretical and computational study of phase transformations and materials processing in condensed and soft matter. The field theoretic method for the study of phase transformations in material systems, also known as the phase-field method, allows one to analyze different stages of transformations within a unified framework. It has received significant attention in the materials science community due to many recent successes in solving or illuminating important problems. In a single volume, this book addresses the fundamentals of the method starting from the basics of the field theoretic method along with its most important theoretical and computational results and some of the most advanced recent results and applications. Now in a revised and expanded second edition, the text is updated throughout and includes material on the classical theory of phase transformations. This book serves as both a primer in the area of phase transformations for those new to the field and as a guide for the more seasoned researcher. It is also of interest to historians of physics.

Alex Umantsev is a Professor of Materials Physics in the Department of Chemistry, Physics, and Materials Science at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina.  He earned his doctorate in 1986 in Moscow (Russia) and worked as a research associate at Northwestern University in the early 1990s.  After that he began his teaching career. His research interests are in the areas of materials theory and multiscale modeling of phase transformations in traditional small-molecule metallic or ceramic systems to crystallization of macromolecules of polymers and proteins. He has always been interested in the processing-structure-properties relations of materials ranging from their production to the analysis of their failure.