Related papers: Point Defects in Crystals of Charged Colloids
In this paper we use computer simulations to examine point defects in systems of "soft" colloidal particles including Hertzian spheres, and star polymers. We use Monte Carlo simulations to determine the deformation of the different crystals…
Understanding the out-of equilibrium behaviour of point defects in crystals, yields insights into the nature and fragility of the ordered state, as well as being of great practical importance. In some rare cases defects are spontaneously…
Crystal defects crucially influence the properties of crystalline materials and have been extensively studied. Even for the simplest type of defect - the point defect - however, basic properties such as their diffusive behavior, and their…
Charged colloids can behave as Yukawa systems, with similar phase behaviour. Using particle- resolved studies, we consider a system with an unusually long Debye screening length which forms crystals at low colloid volume fraction {\phi} ~…
Understanding polymorph selection in atomic and molecular systems and its control through thermodynamic conditions and external factors (such as seed characteristics) is fundamental to the design of targeted materials and holds great…
Electrides are an emerging class of materials with highly-localized electrons in the interstices of a crystal that behave as anions. The presence of these unusual interstitial quasi-atom (ISQ) electrons leads to interesting physical and…
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 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…
We study the topological configurations and dynamics of individual point defect vacancies and interstitials in a two-dimensional colloidal crystal. Our Brownian dynamics simulations show that the diffusion mechanism for vacancy defects…
Point defects play a crucial role in crystalline materials as they do not only impact the thermodynamic properties but are also central to kinetic processes. While they are necessary in thermodynamic equilibrium spontaneous defect formation…
We study the nucleation of nearly-hard charged colloidal particles. We use Monte Carlo simulations in combination with free-energy calculations to accurately predict the phase diagrams of these particles and map them via the freezing…
We demonstrate a novel method of introducing point defects (mono and di-vacancies) in a confined mono-layer colloidal crystal by manipulating individual particles with optical tweezers. Digital video microscopy is used to study defect…
Plasmonic crystals are well known to have band structure including a bandgap, enabling the control of surface plasmon propagation and confinement. The band dispersion relation of bulk crystals has been generally measured by…
We compute the equilibrium concentration of stacking faults and point defects in polydisperse hard-sphere crystals. We find that, while the concentration of stacking faults remains similar to that of monodisperse hard sphere crystals, the…
We study the inverse problem of tuning interaction parameters between charged colloidal particles interacting with a hard-core repulsive Yukawa potential, so that they assemble into specified crystal structures. Here, we target the…
Defects are inevitably present in two-dimensional (2D) materials and usually govern their various properties. Here a comprehensive density functional theory-based investigation of 7 kinds of point defects in a recently produced {\gamma}…
Due to their technological importance, point defects in silicon are among the best studied physical systems. The experimental examination of point defects buried in bulk is difficult and evidence for the various defects usually indirect.…
We study polymorph selection in a model of charged colloids, with a focus on the higher-order structure prior to and during nucleation. Specifically, we carry out molecular dynamics simulations of a repulsive Yukawa system with a slightly…
Micrometre sized colloidal particles can be viewed as large atoms with tailorable size, shape and interactions. These building blocks can assemble into extremely rich structures and phases, in which the thermal motions of particles can be…
We analyze point defect bulk and surface diffusion near the crystal-vacuum interface and show that bulk diffusion is altered by atomic reactions at the surface-vacuum boundary. A new atomic mechanism for point defect generation and…