Related papers: Optical Experiments on a Crystallizing Hard Sphere…
Hard sphere suspensions are well recognized model systems of statistical physics and soft condensed matter. We here investigate the temporal evolution of the immediate environment of nucleating and growing crystals and/or their global scale…
Motivated by old experiments on colloidal suspensions, we report molecular dynamics simulations of assemblies of hard spheres, addressing crystallization and glass formation. The simulations cover wide ranges of polydispersity s (standard…
We prepared a buoyancy matched binary mixture of polydisperse polystyrene microgel spheres of size ratio 0.785 and at a volume fraction of 0.567 just below the kinetic glass transition. In line with theoretical expectations, a eutectic…
We study by molecular dynamics the interplay between arrest and crystallization in hard spheres. For state points in the plane of volume fraction ($0.54 \leq phi \leq 0.63$) and polydispersity ($0 \leq s \leq 0.085$), we delineate states…
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…
We study numerically the crystallization of a hard-sphere mixture with 8\% polydispersity. Although often used as a model glass former, for small system sizes we observe crystallization in molecular dynamics simulations. This opens the…
Crystallization and vitrification are two different routes to form a solid. Normally these two processes suppress each other, with the glass transition preventing crystallization at high density (or low temperature). This is even true for…
We study poly-crystalline spherical drops of an aqueous suspension of highly charged colloidal spheres exposed to a colloid-free aqueous environment. Crystal contours were obtained from standard optical imaging. The crystal spheres first…
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…
Hard spheres with a polydispersity above approximately 8% are shown to crystallise into two phase-separated solid phases. A polydispersity above 8% is too large to be tolerated by a single solid phase but phase separation produces two…
In supercooled liquids, vitrification generally suppresses crystallization. Yet some glasses can still crystallize despite the arrest of diffusive motion. This ill-understood process may limit the stability of glasses, but its microscopic…
We systematically study the relationship between equilibrium and non-equilibrium phase diagrams of a system of short-ranged attractive colloids. Using Monte Carlo and Brownian dynamics simulations we find a window of enhanced…
We study theoretically and numerically the microscopic cause of the mechanical stability of hard sphere glasses near their maximum packing. We show that, after coarse-graining over time, the hard sphere interaction can be described by an…
In the present work, crystallization in melts and poor-solvent solutions of semiflexible polymers with different concentration was studied by means of dissipative particle dynamics simulation technique. We use a coarse-grained polymer model…
Colloids are rarely perfectly uniform but follow a distribution of sizes, shapes, and charges. This dispersity can be inherent (static) or develop and change over time (dynamic). Despite a long history of research, the conditions under…
Depending on the volume fraction and interparticle interactions, colloidal suspensions can form different phases, ranging from fluids, crystals, and glasses to gels. For soft microgels that are made from thermoresponsive polymers, the…
We consider homogeneous crystallisation rates in confocal microscopy experiments on colloidal nearly hard spheres at the single particle level. These we compare with Brownian dynamics simuations by carefully modelling the softness in the…
We study bottlebrush macromolecules in a good solvent by small-angle neutron scattering (SANS), static light scattering (SLS), and dynamic light scattering (DLS). These polymers consist of a linear backbone to which long side chains are…
Today colloids are employed in various products from creams and coatings to electronics. The ability to control their chemical, optical, or electronic features by controlling their size and shape explains why these materials are so widely…
We recently reviewed the experimental determination of the volume fraction, $\phi$, of hard-sphere colloids, and concluded that the absolute value of $\phi$ was unlikely to be known to better than $\pm 3$-6%. Here, in a second part to that…