Crystallization of hard-sphere colloids: deviations from classical nucleation theory

The creation of three-dimensional ordered colloidal crystals, for application in a range of nanotechnologies, has been a goal for many researchers in the past few years. The main difficulty in creating macroscopic sized crystals of densely packed colloidal particles is that colloidal particles always have a range of particle sizes - ie, they are polydisperse. This paper studied the crystallization kinetics of a hard-sphere colloid with a well defined Gaussian polydispersity. The authors find that crystallization occurs in two stages, and does not follow the simple classical nucleation picture. The paper discusses the implications of these results for research into colloidal crystals as possible nano-materials.