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Crystallization of hard-sphere colloids in microgravity

Nature volume 387, pages 883–885 (1997)Cite this article

Abstract

The structure of, and transitions between, liquids, crystals and glasses have commonly been studied with the hard-sphere model1,2,3,4,5, in which the atoms are modelled as spheres that interact only through an infinite repulsion on contact. Suspensions of uniform colloidal polymer particles are good approximations to hard spheres6,7,8,9,10,11, and so provide an experimental model system for investigating hard-sphere phases. They display a crystallization transition driven by entropy alone. Because the particles are much larger than atoms, and the crystals are weakly bound, gravity plays a significant role in the formation and structure of these colloidal crystals. Here we report the results of microgravity experiments performed on the Space Shuttle Columbia to elucidate the effects of gravity on colloidal crystallization. Whereas in normal gravity colloidal crystals grown just above the volume fraction at melting show a mixture of random stacking of hexagonally close-packed planes (r.h.c.p.) and face-centred cubic (f.c.c.) packing if allowed time to settle7,8, those in microgravity exhibit the r.h.c.p. structure alone, suggesting that the f.c.c. component may be induced by gravity-induced stresses. We also see dendritic growth instabilities that are not evident in normal gravity, presumably because they are disrupted by shear-induced stresses as the crystals settle under gravity. Finally, glassy samples at high volume fraction which fail to crystallize after more than a year on Earth crystallize fully in less than two weeks in microgravity. Clearly gravity masks or alters some of the intrinsic aspects of colloidal crystallization.

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Figure 1: Bragg scattering geometry.
Figure 2: Scattering intensity as a function of angle obtained by averaging many scattering images as in Fig. 1b for a sample with φ= 0.537.
Figure 3: Left, photograph of a sample of 508-nm PMMA spheres in index-matching suspension at volume fraction φ= 0.504, in the coexistence region of the phase diagram.
Figure 4: This sample, with φ= 0.619 (deep in the ‘glass’ phase) completely crystallized in microgravity after failing to crystallize in normal gravity.

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Acknowledgements

We thank B. J. Ackerson, P. N. Pusey and D. A. Huse for discussions. This work was supported by the NASA Microgravity Sciences program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. *Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, 08544, New Jersey, USA

    Jixiang Zhu & P. M. Chaikin

  2. †Department of Chemical Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, 08544, New Jersey, USA

    Min Li & W. B. Russel

  3. ‡NASA Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, 44136-3191, Ohio, USA

    R. Rogers & W. Meyer

  4. §School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, BS8 1TS, Bristol, UK

    R. H. Ottewill

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  1. Jixiang Zhu
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Correspondence to P. M. Chaikin.

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Zhu, J., Li, M., Rogers, R. et al. Crystallization of hard-sphere colloids in microgravity. Nature 387, 883–885 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/43141

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