Issue 1, 2013
From the journal:

Soft Matter

Rapid growth of large, defect-free colloidal crystals

K. E. Jensen,*a   D. Pennachio,b   D. Recht,b   D. A. Weitzab  and  F. Spaepen*b  

* Corresponding authors

a Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
E-mail: jensen@physics.harvard.edu

b School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
E-mail: spaepen@seas.harvard.edu

Abstract

We demonstrate controlled growth of face-centered cubic (FCC), monodisperse hard-sphere colloidal crystals by centrifugation at up to 3000g onto FCC (100) templates. Such rapid deposition rates often result in an amorphous sediment. Surprisingly, however, growth onto (100) templates results only in single crystals with few or no extended defects. By contrast, deposition onto flat, (111), or (110) templates causes rapid disordering to an amorphous sediment if the dimensionless flux (particle volume fraction × Peclet number) exceeds a critical value. This crystalline-to-amorphous crossover results from the degeneracy of possible stacking positions for these orientations. No such degeneracy exists for growth onto (100). After growth, extended defects can nucleate and grow only if the crystal exceeds a critical thickness that depends on the lattice misfit with the template spacing. The experimental observations of the density of misfit dislocations are accounted for by the Frank–van der Merwe theory, adapted for the depth-dependent variation of lattice spacing and elastic constants that results from the gravitational pressure.

Graphical abstract: Rapid growth of large, defect-free colloidal crystals

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/C2SM26792F
Article type
Paper
Submitted
01 Aug 2012
Accepted
04 Oct 2012
First published
19 Oct 2012

Soft Matter, 2013,9, 320-328

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Rapid growth of large, defect-free colloidal crystals

K. E. Jensen, D. Pennachio, D. Recht, D. A. Weitz and F. Spaepen, Soft Matter, 2013, 9, 320 DOI: 10.1039/C2SM26792F

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