Assembly and Phase Transitions within Colloidal Crystals

Abstract

Micrometre sized colloidal particles can be viewed as large atoms with tailorable size, shape and interactions. These building blocks can assemble into extremely rich structures and phases, in which the thermal motions of particles can be directly imaged and tracked using optical microscopy. Hence, colloidal particles are excellent model systems for studying phase transitions, especially for poorly understood kinetic and nonequilibrium microscale processes. Advances in colloid fabrication, assembly and computer simulations have opened up numerous possibilities for such research. In this Review, we describe recent progress in the study of colloidal crystals composed of tunable isotropic spheres, anisotropic particles and active particles. We focus on advances in crystallization, melting and solid solid transitions, and highlight challenges and future perspectives in phase transition studies within colloidal crystals.

18 pages, 5 figures, 2 boxes, Nature Review Materials, 2015

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• Flow-induced order-order transitions in amyloid fibril liquid crystalline tactoids
• Exploring particle dynamics during self-organization processes via rotationally invariant latent representations
• Mixed-order phase transition in a colloidal crystal
• The role of attraction in the phase diagrams and melting scenarios of generalized 2D Lennard-Jones systems
• Diverging time scale in the dimensional crossover for liquids in strong confinement
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• Emergent elasticity linked to topological phase transitions controlled via molecular chirality and steric anisotropy
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• Tunable Crystalline Order and Growth Kinetics in 2D Binary Colloidal Self-assembly Driven by Depletion Interactions
• Role of local assembly in the hierarchical crystallization of associating colloidal hard hemispheres
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• Slip-dominated structural transitions
• Understanding orientational disorder in crystalline assemblies of hard convex polyhedra
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• Shape-Determined Kinetic Pathways in 2D Solid-Solid Phase Transitions
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