Nucleation and Growth of Colloidal Crystals

Abstract

Bcc crystalline colloidal microsphere suspensions are shear melted into the metastable liquid phase. Recrystallization occurs via nucleation and growth of single crystallites at dilute sites. The nearly spherical growing crystals have rough interfaces with a time-independent interface velocity, $v$. The velocity is found to be consistent with an equation for normal growth with a limiting velocity determined by free-particle diffusion, $v_0\sim \frac{D_0}{\xi }$, where $D_0$ is the Stokes diffusion constant of independent noninteracting spheres, and $\xi$ is a length comparable to the particle spacing.