Issue 37, 2016

Crystallization kinetics of binary colloidal monolayers

Abstract

Experiments and simulations are used to study the kinetics of crystal growth in a mixture of magnetic and nonmagnetic particles suspended in ferrofluid. The growth process is quantified using both a bond order parameter and a mean domain size parameter. The largest single crystals obtained in experiments consist of approximately 1000 particles and form if the area fraction is held between 65–70% and the field strength is kept in the range of 8.5–10.5 Oe. Simulations indicate that much larger single crystals containing as many as 5000 particles can be obtained under impurity-free conditions within a few hours. If our simulations are modified to include impurity concentrations as small as 1–2%, then the results agree quantitatively with the experiments. These findings provide an important step toward developing strategies for growing single crystals that are large enough to enable follow-on investigations across many subdisciplines in condensed matter physics.

Graphical abstract: Crystallization kinetics of binary colloidal monolayers

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
08 May 2016
Accepted
22 Jul 2016
First published
25 Jul 2016

Soft Matter, 2016,12, 7735-7746

Crystallization kinetics of binary colloidal monolayers

A. T. Pham, R. Seto, J. Schönke, D. Y. Joh, A. Chilkoti, E. Fried and B. B. Yellen, Soft Matter, 2016, 12, 7735 DOI: 10.1039/C6SM01072E

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