title: Crystallization Kinetics of Concurrent Liquid-Metastable and Metastable-Stable Transitions, and Ostwald's Step Rule.
abstract: Experimental measurements of colloidal crystallization in a wide range of volume fractions of charged particles were performed to investigate the liquid-metastable-stable transition process. To fit the obtained experimental data, we developed a theoretical model to formulate the kinetics of the concurrent liquid-metastable and metastable-stable transitions. This model is well-supported by our observations. We found that when the ratio of the metastable-stable transition rate to the liquid-metastable rate is very large, the metastable state can become undetectable, although it still exists, offering a possible explanation for very few exceptions to Ostwald's step rule.
authors.affiliation: †Key Laboratory of Microgravity, Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China.|‡National Microgravity Laboratory, Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Hongwei
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: †Key Laboratory of Microgravity, Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China.|‡National Microgravity Laboratory, Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China.|§College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Material Science, Shandong Normal University, Jinan 250014, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yanming
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Qin
authors.affiliation: †Key Laboratory of Microgravity, Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China.|‡National Microgravity Laboratory, Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Shenghua
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: †Key Laboratory of Microgravity, Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China.|‡National Microgravity Laboratory, Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Zhiwei
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Sun