Related papers: Crystallization and gelation in colloidal systems …
Crystal growth and crystal coalescence processes in supercooled systems strongly depend on the concentration of crystallization centers. We perform atomistic dynamics simulations of the crystallization process in the ultrathin metallic film…
A mixture of two types of super-paramagnetic colloidal particles with long range dipolar interaction is confined by gravity to a flat interface of a hanging water droplet. The particles are observed by video microscopy and the dipolar…
Colloid-polymer mixtures can undergo spinodal decomposition into colloid-rich and colloid-poor regions. Gelation results when interconnected colloid-rich regions solidify. We show that this occurs when these regions undergo a glass…
We address the crystallization of monodisperse hard spheres in terms of the properties of finite- size crystalline clusters. By means of large scale event-driven Molecular Dynamics simulations, we study systems at different packing…
Colloidal particles trapped at an interface between two fluids can form a wide range of different structures. Replacing one of the fluid with a liquid crystal increases the complexity of interactions and results in a greater range of…
The dynamical arrest of gels is the consequence of a well defined structural phase transition, leading to the formation of a spanning cluster of bonded particles. The dynamical glass transition, instead, is not accompanied by any clear…
Competing interactions stabilize exotic mesoscopic structures, yet the microscopic mechanisms by which they influence non-equilibrium processes leading to disordered states remain largely unexplored, despite their critical role in…
Using computer simulations, we study the dynamic arrest in a schematic model of colloid-polymer mixtures combining short-ranged attractions with long-ranged repulsions. The arrested gel is a dilute rigid network of colloidal particles…
We report simulations on the homogeneous liquid-fcc nucleation of charged colloids for both low and high contact energy values. As a precursor for crystal formation, we observe increased local order at the position where the crystal will…
The phase behavior of colloid-polymer mixtures, and of solutions of globular proteins, is often interpreted in terms of a simple model of hard spheres with short-ranged attraction. While such a model yields a qualitative understanding of…
We report on the low temperature behaviour of the colloidal electrolyte by means of Molecular Dynamics simulations, where the electrostatic interactions were modeled using effective screened interactions. As in previous works, we have found…
By means of molecular dynamics, we study the structure and the dynamics of a microscopic model for colloidal gels at low volume fractions. The presence of directional interactions leads to the formation of a persistent interconnected…
Monte Carlo simulation on the crystallization of double crystalline diblock copolymer unravels an intrinsic relationship between block asymmetry and crystallization behaviour. We model crystalline A-B diblock copolymer, wherein the melting…
We study the kinetics of the liquid-to-crystal transformation and of gel formation in colloidal suspensions of oppositely charged particles. We analyse, by means of both computer simulations and experiments, the evolution of a fluid…
We study the formation and growth of equilibrium clusters in a suspension of weakly-charged colloidal particles and small non-adsorbing polymers. The effective potential is characterised by a short-range attraction and a long-range…
Viscoelastic phase separation of colloidal suspensions can be interrupted to form gels either by glass transition or by crystallization. With a new confocal microscopy protocol, we follow the entire kinetics of phase separation, from…
We study the phase ordering dynamics of a two dimensional model colloidal solid using molecular dynamics simulations. The colloid particles interact with each other with a Hamaker potential modified by the presence of equatorial "patches"…
In experimental systems, colloidal particles are virtually always at least somewhat polydisperse, which can have profound effects on their ability to crystallize. Unfortunately, accurately predicting the effects of polydispersity on phase…
We present simulation results addressing the phenomena of colloidal gelation induced by attractive interactions. The liquid-gas transition is prevented by the glass arrest at high enough attraction strength, resulting in a colloidal gel.…
We study the phase behavior of hard spheres confined between two parallel hard plates using extensive computer simulations. We determine the full equilibrium phase diagram for arbitrary densities and plate separations from one to five…