Hard Spheres: Crystallization and Glass Formation Export

@article{citeulike:5430923, abstract = {Motivated by old experiments on colloidal suspensions, we report molecular dynamics simulations of assemblies of hard spheres, addressing crystallization and glass formation. The simulations cover wide ranges of polydispersity s (standard deviation of the particle size distribution divided by its mean) and particle concentration. No crystallization is observed for s \> 0.07. For 0.02 \< s \< 0.07, we find that increasing the polydispersity at a given concentration slows down crystal nucleation. The main effect here is that polydispersity reduces the supersaturation since it tends to stabilise the fluid but to destabilise the crystal. At a given polydispersity (\< 0.07) we find three regimes of nucleation: standard nucleation and growth at concentrations in and slightly above the coexistence region; "spinodal nucleation", where the free energy barrier to nucleation appears to be negligible, at intermediate concentrations; and, at the highest concentrations, a new mechanism, still to be fully understood, which only requires small re-arrangement of the particle positions. The cross-over between the second and third regimes occurs at a concentration, around 58\% by volume, where the colloid experiments show a marked change in the nature of the crystals formed and the particle dynamics indicate an "ideal" glass transition.}, archivePrefix = {arXiv}, author = {Pusey, P. N. and Zaccarelli, E. and Valeriani, C. and Sanz, E. and Poon, W. C. K. and Cates, M. E.}, citeulike-article-id = {5430923}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.1663}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://arxiv.org/pdf/0908.1663}, day = {12}, eprint = {0908.1663}, keywords = {3d, crystallization, glass, glass\_transition, hard\_sphere, molecular\_dynamics, simulation}, month = {Aug}, posted-at = {2009-10-28 20:09:39}, priority = {2}, title = {Hard Spheres: Crystallization and Glass Formation}, url = {http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.1663}, year = {2009} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:5430923 L3 - citeulike-article-id:5430923 N2 - Motivated by old experiments on colloidal suspensions, we report molecular dynamics simulations of assemblies of hard spheres, addressing crystallization and glass formation. The simulations cover wide ranges of polydispersity s (standard deviation of the particle size distribution divided by its mean) and particle concentration. No crystallization is observed for s > 0.07. For 0.02 < s < 0.07, we find that increasing the polydispersity at a given concentration slows down crystal nucleation. The main effect here is that polydispersity reduces the supersaturation since it tends to stabilise the fluid but to destabilise the crystal. At a given polydispersity (< 0.07) we find three regimes of nucleation: standard nucleation and growth at concentrations in and slightly above the coexistence region; "spinodal nucleation", where the free energy barrier to nucleation appears to be negligible, at intermediate concentrations; and, at the highest concentrations, a new mechanism, still to be fully understood, which only requires small re-arrangement of the particle positions. The cross-over between the second and third regimes occurs at a concentration, around 58% by volume, where the colloid experiments show a marked change in the nature of the crystals formed and the particle dynamics indicate an "ideal" glass transition. TI - Hard Spheres: Crystallization and Glass Formation KW - 3d KW - crystallization KW - glass KW - glass_transition KW - hard_sphere KW - molecular_dynamics KW - simulation AU - Pusey, PN AU - Zaccarelli, E AU - Valeriani, C AU - Sanz, E AU - Poon, WCK AU - Cates, ME PY - 2009/Aug/12/ UR - http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.1663 ER -