title: Kinetics of crystallization in hard-sphere colloidal suspensions.
abstract: We propose a kinetic model for describing crystal nucleation kinetics in hard-sphere colloidal suspensions. The model captures the interplay between the enhanced thermodynamic driving force and the reduced particle diffusivity in determining crystal nucleation rates as the particle density is increased in hard-sphere suspensions. Model calculations of nucleation rates and crystal growth velocities agree quantitatively with experimental observations. The dependence of the critical cluster size on volume fraction that emerges differs qualitatively from predictions of classical theories allowing for an experimental validation of the mechanism of crystal nucleation in colloidal suspensions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 114 Roger Adams Laboratory, 600 South Mathews Avenue, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
authors.forename: N M
authors.initials: NM
authors.lastname: Dixit
authors.forename: C F
authors.initials: CF
authors.lastname: Zukoski
mesh_terms: D003102:Colloids / Q000737:chemistry*; D003460:Crystallization; D003461:Crystallography / Q000379:methods*; D018360:Crystallography, X-Ray; D007700:Kinetics; D013816:Thermodynamics; D013997:Time Factors
chemical_list: D003102:Colloids