I am really excited about my paper that was just published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry B. It was selected to be one of the journal covers. The paper provides an in-depth, quantitative exploration of the crystal-melt interface during polymer crystal nucleation. In turn, my collaborators and I reveal that crystal stacking (an important feature of semi-crystalline polymeric materials) emerges during the earliest stages of crystallization. We also demonstrate that embryonic polymer crystals are surrounded by nematic-like droplets, and leverage interfacial structure to relate previous results from disparate experimental and computational studies. I hope you enjoy reading our work (https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcb.0c01972).
Kyle Wm. Hall 