Publication Date:
2019-07-13
Description:
Recent observations of the disorder-order transition for colloidal hard spheres under microgravity revealed dendritic crystallites roughly 1-2 mm in size for samples in the coexistence region of the phase diagram. Order-of-magnitude estimates rationalize the absence of large or dendritic crystals under normal gravity and their stability to annealing in microgravity. A linear stability analysis of the Ackerson and Schaetzel model for crystallization of hard spheres establishes the domain of instability for diffusion-limited growth at small supersaturations. The relationship between hard-sphere and molecular crystal growth is established and exploited to relate the predicted linear instability to the well-developed dendrites observed.
Keywords:
Solid-State Physics
Type:
Second United States Microgravity Laboratory: One Year Report; 2; 549-576; NASA/TM-1998-208697/VOL 2
Format:
text
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