Welcome to the McGill Physics Computational Materials Science Group Web Page

Nikolas Provatas
Professor, Canada Research Chair
Department of Physics Rutherford Building,
McGill University, 3600 rue University,
Montreal, Québec H3A 2T8, Canada
[email protected]
Tel: (514) 398-4479

Scientific Director, McGill High Performance Computing Centre,
École de Technologie Supérieure (ETS),
1100 Rue Notre Dame Ouest,
Montreal, Quebec H3C-1K3
Tel: 514 396-8988

Research interests:
My research is at the interface of condensed matter physics and materials science. It combines high-performance computing with non-equilibrium thermodynamics, statistical mechanics and experiments to understand the fundamental origins of microstructure evolution in materials processes. These include systems undergoing crystallization from a melt or amorphous phases, particle precipitation, second phase formation, grain growth kinetics and reaction-diffusion processes in heterogeneous materials. Most of these systems serve as paradigms for understanding microstructure evolution during material processing. I am interested in porting over ideas and knowledge from microscopic scales to the scales on which material properties are typically realized in practical applications. This connection of length scales can be achieved by course-graining microscopic theories to yield meso-scale continuum and sharp-interface models. Models thus developed can find use in materials engineering applications. Most of the phenomena I study relevance to industrial materials processing, and some of my research is sponsored by industry.

Present and Past Graduate Students and PostDocs in my Research Group Since 2012 (known as "ACSR")

  • Matthew Seymour (Physics PhD): Phase Field Crystal (PFC) modelling of magneto-crystalline interactions and developing new PFC approaches for modelling 2D materials
  • Hossein Azizi (Physics PhD): Modelling spatio-temporal oscillations of solid combustion fronts in the discrete reactant limit
  • Gabriel Kocher (Physics PhD): Advancing the thermodynamics of phase field crystal-type models for the study of solid-liquid-vapour systems and rapid crystallization
  • Nathan Smith (Physics PhD): Phase field crystal studies of non-equilibrium phase formation in multi-component materials
  • Raj Shampur(Physics MSc): Phase field simulations of late stage solidificaiton, segregation and second phase distribution in complex multi-component alloys
  • Kate Elder (Physics MSc): Phase field crystal modelling the graphene structure and growth of graphene on Cu surfaces treated with hydrogen
  • Paul Jreidini (Physics MSc): Modelling time-dependent nucleation processes in the phase field crystal model
  • Dany Rasmussen (Co-supervised with Materils Sci & Engg, PhD): Phase field modelling of rapid solidification in additive manufacturing processes
  • Tatu Pinomaa (Co-supervised with VTT & AAlto University, Finland, PhD): Phase field modelling of rapid solidification in thermal spray coatings
  • Nan Wang (Physics PDF): Phase field and phase field crystal modelling of electromigration in metal interconnects

  • Bernadine Jugdutt(Physics MSc) (completed, 2014): Structural PFC (XPFC) study of the effect of impurities on solid-liquid surface energy anisotropy in alloys
  • Harith Humadi (Materials Science PhD) (completed, 2013): Phase field modelling of solute trapping in rapid crystalliztion of binary alloys
  • Jonathan Stolle (Physics PhD) (completed, 2013): Modelling solute segregation in the phase field crystal binary alloy model
  • Elizabeth Rowan (Physics MSc) (completed, 2012): Modelling the disjoining potential of grain boundries in in the phase field crystal model
  • Sebastian Gurevich (Physics and Chem Eng RA) (completed 2015):Phase field modelling microstructure evolution in microelectronic interconnect alloys, and in liquid crystal systems (partnered with IBM)
  • Nana Ofori-Opoku (Physics and Materials Science PDF) (completed 2014): Phase field modelling of solidification microstructure and deriving complex amplitide models from structural phase field crystal models (Partnered with Novelis)
  • David Montiel (Physics PDF) (completed, 2014): Phase field modelling of solidification microstructures in late stage solidification

    • Microstructure Simulation Movies of the Provatas Research Group:

    Phase Field Summer Schools and Conferences I organized at McGill:

  • 2015 Phase Field Summer School, McGill, July 13-17, 2015: Syllabus and Registration form. Prticipants download Reading materials for the the upcoming 2015 summer school.
  • 2013: Canadian Materials Science Conference (CMSC 25) Website
  • 2012 Phase Field Summer School: reading materials

    • About the McGill University HPC Centre:
    Visit the new website of McGill HPC , McGill's new Supercomputing Centre, member of Compute Canada and the Calcul Quebec Networks. For more info on about McGil HPC or help with HPC in your research, write me or visit our cool site at École de Technologie Supérieure (ETS) on the corner of Notre Dame and Peel, 4th floor. Fairly soon there will be a campus drop in centre too. Stay tuned for news about anticipated upcoming expansion!

    Select Papers

  • Matthew Seymour and Nikolas Provatas Structural phase field crystal approach for modeling graphene and other two-dimensional structures.
    • Physical Review B 93, 035447 (2016).
  • Harith Humadi, J. J. Hoyt and Nikolas Provatas Microscopic treatment of solute trapping and drag.
    • Physical Review E XX, 000400(R) (2016).
  • Gabriel Kocher and Nikolas Provatas New Density Functional Approach for Solid-Liquid-Vapor Transitions in Pure Materials.
    • Physical Review Letters114, 155501 (2015).
  • Bernadine A. Jugdutt, Nana Ofori-Opoku and Nikolas Provatas Calculating the role of composition in the anisotropy of solid-liquid interface energy using phase-field-crystal theory.
    • Physical Review B 92, 042405 (2015).
  • Matthew Seymour, F. Sanches, Ken Elder and Nikolas Provatas Phase-field crystal approach for modeling the role of microstructure in multiferroic composite materials.
    • Physical Review B 92, 184109 (2015).
  • Sebastian Gurevich, Ezequiel Soule, Alejandro Rey, Linda Reven and Nikolas Provatas Self-assembly via branching morphologies in nematic liquid-crystal nanocomposites.
    • Phys Rev E 90, 020501(R) (2014).
  • David Montiel, Sebastian Gurevich, Nana Ofori-Opoku and Nikolas Provatas Characterization of late-stage equiaxed solidification of alloys.
    • Acta Materialia 77, 183 (2014).
  • Nana Ofori-Opoku, Jonathan Stolle,3 Zhi-Feng Huang and Nikolas Provatas Complex order parameter phase-field models derived from structural phase-field-crystal models.
    • Physical Review B 88, 104106 (2013).
  • D. Montiel, Liu b, L. Xiao, Y. Zhou and Nikolas Provatas Microstructure analysis of AZ31 magnesium alloy welds using phase-field models.
    • Acta Materialia 60, 5925 (2012).
  • Nana Ofori-Opoku, Vahid Fallah, Michael Greenwood, Shahrzad Esmaeili and Nikolas Provatas Multicomponent phase field crystal model for structural transformtion in metal alloys.
    • Physical Review B 87, 134105 (2013).
  • Vahid Fallah, Ofori-Opoku, Jonathan Stolle, Nikolas Provatas and Shahrzad Esmaeili Simulation of early-stage clustering in ternary metal alloys using the phase-field crystal method.
    • Physical Review B 87, 134105 (2013).
  • Joel Berry, Nikolas Provatas, Joerg Rottler and Chad W. Sinclair Defect Stability in phase field crydtal models: Stacking faults and partial dislocations. Physical Review B 86, 224112 (2012). *(Editor's suggestion).
  • Morteza Amoorezaei, Sebastian Gurevich and Nikolas Provatas Orientation selection in solidification patterning. Acta Materialia 60, 657 (2012).
  • Michael Greenwood, Nana Ofori-Opoku, Joerg Rottler and Nikolas Provatas Modeling structural transformations in binary alloys with phase fied crystals. Physical Review Rev. B 84, 064104 (2011).
  • Michael Greenwood, Nikolas Provatas and Joerg Rottler Free Energy Functionals for Efficient Phase Field Crystal Modeling of Structural Phase Transformations. Physical Review Letters 105, 045702 (2010).
  • Nikolas Provatas and Sami Majaniemi Phase-field-crystal calculation of crystal-melt surface tension in binary alloys. Physical Review E 82,041601 (2010).
  • Morteza Amoorezaei, Sebastian Gurevich and Nikolas Provatas Spacing characterization in Al-Cu alloys directionally solidified under transient growth conditions. Acta Materialia 58, 6115 (2010).
  • K.R. Elder, Zhi-Feng Huang add Nikolas Provatas Amplitude expansion of binary phase-field crystal model. Physical Review E 81, 011602 (2010).
  • Nana Ofori-Opoku and Nikolas Provatas A quantitative multi-phase field model of polycrystalline solidification. Acta Materialia 58, 2155(2010).
  • Sami Majaniemi and Nikolas Provatas Deriving surface-energy anisotropy for phenomenological phase-field models of solidification. Physical Review E 79, 011607 (2009).
  • B.P Athreya, N. Goldenfeld, J. Dantzig, M. Greenwood and N. Provatas Adaptive mesh computation of polycrystalline pattern formation using renormalization group reduction of the phase field crystal model. Physical Review E 76, 056706 (2007).
  • Peter Stefanovic, Mikko Haataja and N. Provatas Phase-Field Crystals with Elastic Interactioms. Physical Review Letters 96, 225504 (2006).
  • Michael Greenwood, Mikko Haataja and N. Provatas Crossover Scaling of Wavelength Selection in Directional Solidification of Binary Alloys. Physical Review Letters 93, 246101 (2004).