The role of metastability in phase transformations: new pointers through polymer mesophases

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Abstract
It is a long-standing experience, as expressed by Ostwald's Rule of Stages, that metastable phases can play a dominant role in phase transformations. Presently the crystallisation of polymers, polyethylene in particular, has thanks to the special mesomorphic features of one of its phase variants, provided an example by which this old experience can be rationalised. In the course of it new perspectives have arisen in the field of polymer crystallisation in its own right, and beyond it new possibilities have opened up for the accounting for and hopefully control of polymorphism in crystal growth in wider generality.