  When a crystalline solid such as iron is cooled across a structural
transition, its final microstructure depends sensitively on the cooling rate.
For instance, an adiabatic cooling across the transition results in an
equilibrium `ferrite', while a rapid cooling gives rise to a metastable twinned
`martensite'. There exists no theoretical framework to understand the dynamics
and conditions under which both these microstructures obtain. Existing theories
of martensite dynamics describe this transformation in terms of elastic strain,
without any explanation for the occurence of the ferrite. Here we provide
evidence for the crucial role played by non-elastic variables, {\it viz.},
dynamically generated interfacial defects. A molecular dynamics (MD) simulation
of a model 2-dimensional (2d) solid-state transformation reveals two distinct
modes of nucleation depending on the temperature of quench. At high
temperatures, defects generated at the nucleation front relax quickly giving
rise to an isotropically growing `ferrite'. At low temperatures, the defects
relax extremely slowly, forcing a coordinated motion of atoms along specific
directions. This results in a twinned critical nucleus which grows rapidly at
speeds comparable to that of sound. Based on our MD results, we propose a
solid-state nucleation theory involving the elastic strain and non-elastic
defects, which successfully describes the transformation to both a ferrite and
a martensite. Our work provides useful insights on how to formulate a general
dynamics of solid state transformations.
