1998/09/08 by P. Bartlett, Paul D. Bartlett, Bartlett, P. · 2 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Condensed Matter (cond-mat) #FOS: Physical sciences #Freezing and Crystallization Processes #Material Dynamics and Properties #cond-mat #nanoparticles nucleation surface interactions
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/9809131
10 pages, 4 figures to appear in J. Chem. Phys
arxiv created 1998/09/08 · openalex publication_date 1998/09/08 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We consider the nature of the fluid-solid phase transition in a polydisperse mixture of hard spheres. For a sufficiently polydisperse mixture crystallisation occurs with simultaneous fractionation. At the fluid-solid boundary, a broad fluid diameter distribution is split into a number of narrower fractions, each of which then crystallises. The number of crystalline phases increases with the overall level of polydispersity. At high densities, freezing is followed by a sequence of demixing transitions in the polydisperse crystal.