Related papers: Hard Spheres: Crystallization and Glass Formation

Crucial to gaining control over crystallisation in multicomponent materials or accurately modelling rheological behaviour of magma flows is to understand the mechanisms by which crystal nuclei form. The microscopic nature of such nuclei,…

The effect of polydispersity on the freezing transition of hard spheres is examined within a moment description. At low polydispersities a single fluid-to-crystal transition is recovered. With increasing polydispersity we find a density…

We investigate the response of a system of hard spheres to two classes of perturbations over a range of densities spanning the fluid, crystalline, and glassy regimes within a molecular dynamics framework. Firstly, we consider the relaxation…

In the study of crystal nucleation via computer simulations, hard spheres are arguably the most extensively explored model system. Nonetheless, even in this simple model system, the complex thermodynamics of crystal nuclei can sometimes…

We use dynamic light scattering and computer simulations to study equilibrium dynamics and dynamic heterogeneity in concentrated suspensions of colloidal hard spheres. Our study covers an unprecedented density range and spans seven decades…

The discrepancy in nucleation rate densities between simulated and experimental hard spheres remains staggering and unexplained. Suggestively, more strongly sedimenting colloidal suspensions of hard spheres nucleate much faster than weakly…

We study the interplay between the fluid-crystal transition and the glass transition of elastic sphere system with polydispersity using nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations. It is found that the end point of the crystal-fluid…

Based on results from the physics and mathematics literature which suggest a series of clearly defined conjectures, we formulate three simple scenarios for the fate of hard sphere crystallization in high dimension: (A) crystallization is…

Combining three numerical methods (forward flux sampling, seeding of droplets, and finite size droplets), we probe the crystallization of hard spheres over the full range from close to coexistence to the spinodal regime. We show that all…

Particle size polydispersity can help to inhibit crystallization of the hard-sphere fluid into close-packed structures at high packing fractions and thus is often employed to create model glass-forming systems. Nonetheless, it is known that…

Slow dynamics in a fluid are studied in one of the most basic systems possible: polydisperse hard spheres. Monodisperse hard spheres cannot be studied as the slow down in dynamics as the density is increased is preempted by crystallisation.…

We present evidence from computer simulations for glassy dynamics in suspensions of monodisperse hard ellipsoids. In equilibrium, almost spherical ellipsoids show a first order transition from an isotropic phase to a rotator phase. When…

We report on the crystallization kinetics in an entropically attractive colloidal system using a combination of time resolved scattering methods and microscopy. Hard sphere particles are polystyrene microgels swollen in a good solvent…

Unlike atoms, colloidal particles are not identical, but can only be synthesised within a finite size tolerance. Colloids are therefore polydisperse, i.e. mixtures of infinitely many components with sizes drawn from a continuous…

The results of a numerical investigation of fluidized beds of spherical particles in a narrow vertical cylindrical pipe, with particular attention to the spontaneous settling along the wall, are reported. Starting from a steady fluidized…

We report a detailed experimental study of the structure and dynamics of glassy states in hard spheres with short-range attraction. The system is a suspension of nearly-hard-sphere colloidal particles and non-adsorbing linear polymer which…

Concentrated colloidal suspensions are a well-tested model system which has a glass transition. Colloids are suspensions of small solid particles in a liquid, and exhibit glassy behavior when the particle concentration is high; the…

We consider the nature of the fluid-solid phase transition in a polydisperse mixture of hard spheres. For a sufficiently polydisperse mixture crystallisation occurs with simultaneous fractionation. At the fluid-solid boundary, a broad fluid…

We show that the slowing of the dynamics in simulations of several model glass-forming liquids is equivalent to the hard-sphere glass transition in the low-pressure limit. In this limit, we find universal behavior of the relaxation time by…

Colloidal glasses form from hard spheres, nearly hard spheres, ellipsoids and platelets or their attractive variants have been studied in detail. Complementing and checking theoretical approaches and simulations, the many different types of…