Related papers: Crystallization in a sheared colloidal suspension
Stability of coarse particles against gravity is an important issue in dense suspensions (fresh concrete, foodstuff, etc.). On the one hand, it is known that they are stable at rest when the interstitial paste has a high enough yield…
We investigate the effects of a two-dimensional, incompressible, turbulent flow on mono-disperse soft granular particles and show the emergence of a crystalline phase due to the interplay of Stokesian drag (measured through the Stokes…
Systems with long-range interactions when quenced into a metastable state near the pseudo-spinodal exhibit nucleation processes that are quite different from the classical nucleation seen near the coexistence curve. In systems with…
A two-dimensional plasma crystal was melted by suddenly applying localized shear stress. A stripe of particles in the crystal was pushed by the radiation pressure force of a laser beam. We found that the response of the plasma crystal to…
The mechanical non-linear response of dense Brownian suspensions of polymer gel particles is studied experimentally and by means of numerical simulations. It is shown that the response to the application of a constant shear rate depends on…
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…
Freezing is a fundamental physical phenomenon that has been studied over many decades; yet the role played by surfaces in determining nucleation has remained elusive. Here we report direct computational evidence of surface induced…
The formation of drops of a complex fluid, for instance including dissolved polymers and/or solid particles, has practical implications in several industrial and biophysical processes. In this Letter, we experimentally investigate the…
The drying of a colloidal dispersion can result in a gel phase defined as a porous matrix saturated in solvent. During the drying process, high mechanical stresses are generated. When these stresses exceed the strength of the material, they…
We study the flow of model experimental hard sphere colloidal suspensions at high volume fraction $\Phi$ driven through a constriction by a pressure gradient. Above a particle-size dependent limit $\Phi_0$, direct microscopic observations…
While statistical mechanics provides a comprehensive framework for the understanding of equilibrium phase behavior, predicting the kinetics of phase transformations remains a challenge. Classical nucleation theory (CNT) provides a…
Fluid convection during protein crystallization plays a significant role in determining crystal growth rate and crystal quality. Crystals grown in reduced flow strength gives better quality crystal. Hence, tuning the flow strength is very…
We study the stationary and transient behaviors of the microemulsion phase subjected to a shear flow. The system is described by a diffusion-convective equation which generalizes the usual Cahn-Hilliard equation. Non-linear terms are…
We study the rheological properties of colloidal microphases in two dimensions simulating a model of colloidal particles with competing interactions. Due to the competition between short-range attraction and long-range repulsion, as a…
Dynamic particle-scale numerical simulations are used to show that the shear thickening observed in dense colloidal, or Brownian, suspensions is of a similar nature to that observed in non-colloidal suspensions, i.e., a stress-induced…
Many densely packed suspensions and colloids exhibit a behavior known as Discontinuous Shear Thickening in which the shear stress jumps dramatically and reversibly as the shear rate is increased. We performed rheometry and video microscopy…
Recent observations of the growth of protein crystals have identified two different growth regimes. At low supersaturation, the surface of the crystal is smooth and increasing in size due to the nucleation of steps at defects and the…
In Al2O3 suspensions, depending on the experimental conditions very different microstructures can be found, comprising fluid like suspensions, a repulsive structure, and a clustered microstructure. For technical processing in ceramics, the…
Crystallization often proceeds through successive stages that lead to a gradual increase in organization. Using molecular simulation, we determine the nucleation pathway for solid solutions of copper and gold. We identify a new nucleation…
We determined bulk crystal nucleation rates in aqueous suspensions of charged spheres at low metastability. Experiments were performed in dependence on electrolyte concen-tration and for two different particle number densities. The…