Surface melting and crystallisation driven by sedimentation: a particle resolved study
Soft Condensed Matter
2016-08-24 v1 Statistical Mechanics
Abstract
We investigate the effects of the reversal of the gravitational field onto a sedimented and partially crystallised suspension of nearly-hard sphere colloids. We analyse the structural changes that take place during the melting of the crystalline regions and the reorganisation and assembly of the sedimenting particles. Through a comparison with numerical simulation, we access the single-particle kinetics and identify the key structural mechanism in the competition between five-fold symmetric and cubic crystalline structures. With the use of a coarse-grained, discrete model, we reproduce the kinetic network of reactions underpinning crystallisation and highlight the main microscopic transitions.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1603.09174,
title = {Surface melting and crystallisation driven by sedimentation: a particle resolved study},
author = {Francesco Turci and C. Patrick Royall},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1603.09174},
year = {2016}
}