Search results for "Hard spheres"
showing 10 items of 66 documents
Description of hard-sphere crystals and crystal-fluid interfaces: a comparison between density functional approaches and a phase-field crystal model.
2012
In materials science the phase field crystal approach has become popular to model crystallization processes. Phase field crystal models are in essence Landau-Ginzburg-type models, which should be derivable from the underlying microscopic description of the system in question. We present a study on classical density functional theory in three stages of approximation leading to a specific phase field crystal model, and we discuss the limits of applicability of the models that result from these approximations. As a test system we have chosen the three--dimensional suspension of monodisperse hard spheres. The levels of density functional theory that we discuss are fundamental measure theory, a …
Monte Carlo simulations of the solid-liquid transition in hard spheres and colloid-polymer mixtures
2010
Monte Carlo simulations at constant pressure are performed to study coexistence and interfacial properties of the liquid-solid transition in hard spheres and in colloid-polymer mixtures. The latter system is described as a one-component Asakura-Oosawa (AO) model where the polymer's degrees of freedom are incorporated via an attractive part in the effective potential for the colloid-colloid interactions. For the considered AO model, the polymer reservoir packing fraction is eta_p^r=0.1 and the colloid-polymer size ratio is q=sigma_p/\sigma=0.15 (with sigma_p and sigma the diameter of polymers and colloids, respectively). Inhomogeneous solid-liquid systems are prepared by placing the solid fc…
Electrical resistivity of amorphous simple metals at moderately low temperatures
1999
Abstract The dependence of electrical resistivity ρ ( T ) on temperature T in a region of moderate temperatures is considered for amorphous simple metals. It is shown within the Faber–Ziman theory that the ratio [ ρ ( T )− ρ (0)]/ T 2 has a maximum in the temperature region 10 K⩽ T ⩽100 K The theory is illustrated by numerical calculations performed for hard-sphere models of amorphous Mg and Zn.
29Si NMR and Small-Angle X-ray Scattering Studies of the Effect of Alkaline Ions (Li+, Na+, and K+) in Silico-Alkaline Sols
1999
Alkali−silica reactions (ASR) which occur in concrete can be simulated in laboratory by destabilization of silico-alkaline aqueous solutions by addition of calcium ions. The relevant features of the reaction depend on the nature of alkaline ions (Li+, Na+, or K+) and on the silica/alkaline ratios which fix the distribution of the molecular species in the precursor solution. 29Si NMR spectroscopy and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) techniques were used to study the structure and size distribution of molecular and colloidal species in sols with different silica/alkaline molar ratio and several types of alkaline ions. Experimental SAXS curves were simulated using a simple structural model …
Computer simulation studies of finite-size broadening of solid–liquid interfaces: from hard spheres to nickel
2009
Using Molecular Dynamics (MD) and Monte Carlo (MC) simulations interfacial properties of crystal-fluid interfaces are investigated for the hard sphere system and the one-component metallic system Ni (the latter modeled by a potential of the embedded atom type). Different local order parameters are considered to obtain order parameter profiles for systems where the crystal phase is in coexistence with the fluid phase, separated by interfaces with (100) orientation of the crystal. From these profiles, the mean-squared interfacial width w^2 is extracted as a function of system size. We rationalize the prediction of capillary wave theory that w^2 diverges logarithmically with the lateral size o…
Dynamics of Colloidal Hard Spheres in Thin Aqueous Suspension Layers—Particle Tracking by Digital Image Processing and Brownian Dynamics Computer Sim…
1993
Abstract A new experimentally simple technique is introduced for studying dynamical properties of hard sphere colloids in thin aqueous suspension layers by light-microscopy observation supported by computer-aided digital image processing. The thickness of the layers of the colloidal samples confined between two smooth glass plates is accurately adjusted by monodisperse "spacer" spheres which are larger than the diffusing spheres. Tracking of single particles in concentrated phases is accomplished using fluorescence light microscopy where a few dyed particles are mixed with the undyed colloidal spheres of the same size. First results are presented for the self-diffusion coefficient—(i) in ve…
Perspective: The Asakura Oosawa model: A colloid prototype for bulk and interfacial phase behavior
2014
In many colloidal suspensions, the micrometer-sized particles behave like hard spheres, but when non-adsorbing polymers are added to the solution a depletion attraction (of entropic origin) is created. Since 60 years the Asakura-Oosawa model, which simply describes the polymers as ideal soft spheres, is an archetypical description for the statistical thermodynamics of such systems, accounting for many features of real colloid-polymer mixtures very well. While the fugacity of the polymers (which controls their concentration in the solution) plays a role like inverse temperature, the size ratio of polymer versus colloid radii acts as a control parameter to modify the phase diagram: when this …
Polyorganosiloxane nanoparticles as optical tracers
2007
Polyorganosiloxane microgels have been synthesized by polycondensation in a microemulsion of trimethoxysilanes. Highly crosslinked rather monodisperse particles of radius about 10 nm are obtained.
The effect of the internal architecture of polymer micronetwork colloids on the dynamics in highly concentrated dispersions
2007
Motivated by the finding that colloidal dispersions of polymer micronetwork spheres with a cross-link density of 1:50 (inverse number of monomer units between crosslinks) show significant deviations from the dynamics of hard spheres in the colloid glass as seen by dynamic light scattering (DLS) (E. Bartsch, V. Frenz, H. Sillescu J. Non — Cryst. Solids 172–174 (1994), 88–97), we have undertaken a systematic study of the effect of the crosslink density on the dynamics at high concentrations. Long-time self-diffusion coefficients D S L and collective diffusion coefficients D c were measured for colloids with crosslink densities of 1:10, 1:20 and 1:50 by forced Rayleigh scattering (FRS) and the…
Investigation of Finite-Size Effects in the Determination of Interfacial Tensions
2014
The interfacial tension between coexisting phases of a material is an important parameter in the description of many phenomena such as crystallization, and even today its accurate measurement remains difficult. We have studied logarithmic finite-size corrections in the determination of the interfacial tension with large scale Monte Carlo simulations, and have identified several novel contributions which not only depend on the ensemble, but also on the type of the applied boundary conditions. We present results for the Lennard-Jones system and the Ising model, as well as for hard spheres, which are particularly challenging. In the future, these findings will contribute to the understanding a…