Search results for "experiments in reduced gravity"

Seed- and wall-induced heterogeneous nucleation in charged colloidal model systems under microgravity

2011

Understanding the process that drives an undercooled fluid to the crystal state is still a challenging issue for condensed matter physics and plays a key role in designing new materials. The crystallization kinetics and the resulting polycrystalline morphology are given by a complex interplay of crystal nucleation, growth, and ripening. A great deal of progress has been made in recent years using colloidal suspensions as model systems in the study of crystallization. Close analogies to atomic systems are observed which can be exploited to address questions not accessible in atomic solidification. Here we present systematic measurements of the crystallization kinetics of a charged colloidal …