Crystal nucleation of colloidal hard dumbbells

Abstract

Using computer simulations we investigate the homogeneous crystal nucleation in suspensions of colloidal hard dumbbells. The free energy barriers are determined by Monte Carlo simulations using the umbrella sampling technique. We calculate the nucleation rates for the plastic crystal and the aperiodic crystal phase using the kinetic prefactor as determined from event driven molecular dynamics simulations. We find good agreement with the nucleation rates determined from spontaneous nucleation events observed in event driven molecular dynamics simulations within error bars of one order of magnitude. We study the effect of aspect ratio of the dumbbells on the nucleation of plastic and aperiodic crystal phases and we also determine the structure of the critical nuclei. Moreover, we find that the nucleation of the aligned CP1 crystal phase is strongly suppressed by a high free energy barrier at low supersaturations and slow dynamics at high supersaturations.

Accepted by J. Chem. Phys

References in corpus (4)

• Accurate determination of crystal structures based on averaged local bond order parameters
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• Coupling/decoupling between translational and rotational dynamics in a supercooled molecular liquid
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• Crystallizing hard-sphere glasses by doping with active particles
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• Localized orientational order chaperons the nucleation of Rotator phases in hard polyhedral particles
• Structure and phase behavior of colloidal dumbbells with tunable attractive interactions
• A simple diatomic potential that prevents crystallization in supercooled liquids simulations
• Nonequilibrium Structure of Colloidal Dumbbells under Oscillatory Shear
• Equilibrium structure and fluctuations of suspensions of colloidal dumbbells
• Role of local assembly in the hierarchical crystallization of associating colloidal hard hemispheres