Crystallization kinetics of colloidal binary mixtures with depletion attraction

Abstract

In this work the crystallization kinetics of colloidal binary mixtures with attractive interaction potential (Asakura–Oosawa) has been addressed. Parameters such as fraction of crystals, linear crystal dimension and crystal packing have been quantified in order to understand how the crystal formation is driven in terms of the depth of the attractive potential and the composition of the binary mixture (described by the number ratio). It was found that inside the eutectic triangle, crystallization is mainly governed by nucleation and the crystal packing is close to the close-packing of hard spheres. Moving out from the eutectic triangle towards small component results in the crystallization of small spheres. Enrichment of the eutectic mixture with large component results in the crystallization of both large and small spheres, however, the kinetics are completely different from those of the eutectic composition. Crosslinked polystyrene microgels with nearly hard sphere interactions were used as model systems. Attraction was introduced by addition of linear polystyrene. The time evolution of crystallization has been followed by static light scattering.