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Dating from experiments more than 20 years ago, it has been realized that the crystallization of hard colloidal particles in the vicinity of dynamical arrest has several anomalies, that render the conventional nucleation and growth model…
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…
Over the past two decades, a large number of studies addressed the topic of crystal nucleation in suspensions of hard spheres. The shared result of all these efforts is that, at low super-saturations, experimentally observed nucleation…
Velocity and density structure factors are measured over a hydrodynamic range of scales in a horizontal quasi-2d fluidized granular experiment, with packing fractions $\phi\in[10%,40%]$. The fluidization is realized by vertically vibrating…
We report on a large scale computer simulation study of crystal nucleation in hard spheres. Through a combined analysis of real and reciprocal space data, a picture of a two-step crystallization process is supported: First dense, amorphous…
Gels in soft-matter systems are an important nonergodic state of matter. We study a colloid-polymer mixture which is quenched by increasing the polymer concentration, from a fluid to a gel. Using confocal microscopy, we study both the…
The Asakura-Oosawa model for colloid-polymer mixtures is studied by Monte Carlo simulations at densities inside the two-phase coexistence region of fluid and solid. Choosing a geometry where the system is confined between two flat walls,…
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…
Using Newtonian and Brownian dynamics simulations, the structural and transport properties of hard and soft spheres have been studied. The soft spheres were modeled using inverse power potentials ($V\sim r^{-n}$, with $1/n$ the potential…
We consider a system of spherical particles interacting by means of a pair potential equal to a finite constant for interparticle distances smaller than the sphere diameter and zero outside. The model may be a prototype for the interaction…
We use numerical simulations to understand how random deviations from the ideal spherical shape affect the ability of hard particles to form fcc crystalline structures. Using a system of hard spheres as a reference, we determine the…
Using molecular dynamics simulation, we investigate the slow dynamics of a supercooled binary mixture of soft particles interacting with a generalized Hertzian potential. At low density, it displays typical slow dynamics near its glass…
Computer simulations of the fluid-to-solid phase transition in the hard sphere system were instrumental for our understanding of crystallization processes. But while colloid experiments and theory have been predicting the stability of…
The interplay between crystal nucleation and the structure of the metastable fluid has been a topic of significant debate over recent years. In particular, it has been suggested that even in simple model systems such as hard or charged…
Colloidal particles are often seen as big atoms that can be directly observed in real space. They are therefore playing an increasingly important role as model systems to study processes of interest in condensed matter physics such as…
In this work, we use structure and dynamics in sedimentation equilibrium, in the presence of gravity, to examine, $via$ confocal microscopy, a Brownian colloidal system in the presence of an external electric field. The zero field equation…
We investigate crystal nucleation in supersaturated colloid suspensions using enhanced molecular dynamics simulations augmented with machine learning techniques. The simulations reveal that crystallization in the model colloidal system…
The stability of a quasicrystalline structure, recently obtained in a molecular-dynamics simulation of rapid cooling of a binary melt, is analyzed for binary hard-sphere mixtures within a density-functional approach. It is found that this…
We investigate sedimentation of model hard sphere-like colloidal dispersions confined in horizontal capillaries using laser scanning confocal microscopy, dynamical density functional theory, and Brownian dynamics computer simulations. For…
We analyse structure and dynamics in simulated high-concentration hard sphere colloidal suspensions by means of calculations based on the void space. We show that remoteness, a quantity measuring the scale of spaces, is useful in studying…