Mullins–Sekerka instability
E647521
The Mullins–Sekerka instability is a morphological instability that occurs during diffusion-limited solidification or crystal growth, leading to pattern formation such as dendrites at moving phase boundaries.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Mullins–Sekerka instability canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T7189141 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Mullins–Sekerka instability Context triple: [Saffman–Taylor instability, relatedTo, Mullins–Sekerka instability]
-
A.
Saffman–Taylor instability
The Saffman–Taylor instability is a fluid dynamics phenomenon in which a less viscous fluid penetrating a more viscous one in a confined geometry leads to finger-like interfacial patterns, often called viscous fingering.
-
B.
Cahn–Hilliard equation
The Cahn–Hilliard equation is a nonlinear partial differential equation that models phase separation and coarsening in binary mixtures and other systems undergoing spinodal decomposition.
-
C.
Rayleigh–Taylor instability
Rayleigh–Taylor instability is a fluid dynamics phenomenon in which the interface between two fluids of different densities becomes unstable when the lighter fluid pushes against the heavier one, leading to complex mixing patterns.
-
D.
Landau–Peierls instability
Landau–Peierls instability is a theoretical prediction in condensed matter physics that shows how long-wavelength thermal fluctuations destroy true long-range positional order in low-dimensional crystalline systems.
-
E.
Smoluchowski coagulation equation
The Smoluchowski coagulation equation is a fundamental integro-differential equation in statistical physics that models how particles undergoing random collisions aggregate over time into larger clusters.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Mullins–Sekerka instability Target entity description: The Mullins–Sekerka instability is a morphological instability that occurs during diffusion-limited solidification or crystal growth, leading to pattern formation such as dendrites at moving phase boundaries.
-
A.
Saffman–Taylor instability
The Saffman–Taylor instability is a fluid dynamics phenomenon in which a less viscous fluid penetrating a more viscous one in a confined geometry leads to finger-like interfacial patterns, often called viscous fingering.
-
B.
Cahn–Hilliard equation
The Cahn–Hilliard equation is a nonlinear partial differential equation that models phase separation and coarsening in binary mixtures and other systems undergoing spinodal decomposition.
-
C.
Rayleigh–Taylor instability
Rayleigh–Taylor instability is a fluid dynamics phenomenon in which the interface between two fluids of different densities becomes unstable when the lighter fluid pushes against the heavier one, leading to complex mixing patterns.
-
D.
Landau–Peierls instability
Landau–Peierls instability is a theoretical prediction in condensed matter physics that shows how long-wavelength thermal fluctuations destroy true long-range positional order in low-dimensional crystalline systems.
-
E.
Smoluchowski coagulation equation
The Smoluchowski coagulation equation is a fundamental integro-differential equation in statistical physics that models how particles undergoing random collisions aggregate over time into larger clusters.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
interfacial instability
ⓘ
morphological instability ⓘ physical phenomenon ⓘ |
| appliesTo |
alloy solidification
ⓘ
directional solidification experiments ⓘ ice crystal growth ⓘ metal solidification ⓘ semiconductor crystal growth ⓘ |
| basedOn |
diffusion field perturbations
ⓘ
solute diffusion ⓘ thermal diffusion ⓘ |
| cause |
breakdown of planar solidification front
ⓘ
cellular interface patterns ⓘ dendritic growth ⓘ interface roughening ⓘ pattern formation ⓘ |
| dependsOn |
diffusion coefficient
ⓘ
growth velocity ⓘ interface curvature ⓘ partition coefficient ⓘ surface tension ⓘ undercooling ⓘ |
| describedBy |
Gibbs–Thomson condition
ⓘ
Stefan condition ⓘ
linked to:
Stefan problem
diffusion equation ⓘ linear stability analysis ⓘ |
| field |
condensed matter physics
ⓘ
crystal growth ⓘ materials science ⓘ solidification theory ⓘ |
| hasConsequence |
formation of dendrite tips
ⓘ
microstructural pattern selection ⓘ selection of characteristic length scales ⓘ |
| namedAfter |
Robert F. Sekerka
ⓘ
William W. Mullins ⓘ |
| occursAt |
moving phase boundary
ⓘ
solidification front ⓘ solid–liquid interface ⓘ |
| occursInProcess |
alloy solidification
ⓘ
crystal growth ⓘ diffusion-limited solidification ⓘ directional solidification ⓘ |
| relatedTo |
cellular solidification
ⓘ
constitutional supercooling ⓘ dendritic solidification ⓘ morphological stability criterion ⓘ pattern formation in nonequilibrium systems ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Mullins–Sekerka instability Description of subject: The Mullins–Sekerka instability is a morphological instability that occurs during diffusion-limited solidification or crystal growth, leading to pattern formation such as dendrites at moving phase boundaries.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.