Molecular dynamics simulations of spontaneous and seeded nucleation and theoretical calculations for zinc selenide

•Introducing a new force field for modeling Zink Selenide.•Determining both mechanical and thermodynamic melting temperatures of ZnSe.•Computing the nucleation rates by both seeding and mean lifetime method.•Calculating the γ by the CNT expression using the MD simulation data.•The JCNT extrapolated from moderate supercoolings to deep supercoolings are in good agreement with the JMD.