title: Growth of defect-free colloidal hard-sphere crystals using colloidal epitaxy.
abstract: Using event-driven Brownian dynamics simulations, we investigate the epitaxial growth of hard-sphere crystals with a face-centered-cubic (fcc) structure on the three densest cross-sectional planes of the fcc: (i) fcc (100), (ii) fcc (111), and (iii) fcc (110). We observe that for high settling velocities, large fcc crystals with very few extended defects grow on the fcc (100) template. Our results show good agreement with the experiments of Jensen et al. [Soft Matter 9, 320 (2013)], who observed such large fcc crystals upon centrifugation on an fcc (100) template. We also compare the quality of the fcc crystal formed on the fcc (111) and fcc (110) templates with that of the fcc (100) template and conclude that the latter yields the best crystal. We also briefly discuss the dynamical behavior of stacking faults that occur in the sediments.
authors.affiliation: Soft Condensed Matter, Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science, Department of Physics, Utrecht University, Princetonplein 5, 3584 CC Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Tonnishtha
authors.identifier: 0000000184988658
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Dasgupta
authors.affiliation: Soft Condensed Matter, Utrecht University, Princetonplein 5, 3584 CC, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: John R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Edison
authors.affiliation: Soft Condensed Matter, Utrecht University, Princetonplein 5, 3584 CC, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Marjolein
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dijkstra