Hard-sphere crystals with hcp and non-close-packed structure grown by colloidal epitaxy.
We demonstrate the epitaxial growth of a metastable (with respect to the bulk) hcp crystal as well as any other close-packed stacking sequence of colloidal hard spheres. At certain stretched and compressed lattices we furthermore observed growth of a non-close-packed superstructure and of a perfect (100)-aligned fcc crystal. Perfect template-induced hcp-crystal growth occurs at lattice spacings that are larger than for bulk crystallization, indicative of prefreezing. Small mismatches lead to increased out-of-plane displacements. Large mismatches prevent crystallization in the surface layers.
Hoogenboom
J P
JP
F.O.M. Institute for Atomic en Molecular Physics, Kruislaan 407, 1098 SJ Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Van Langen-Suurling
A K
AK
Romijn
J
J
Van Blaaderen
A
A