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Crystal Nucleation of Colloidal Suspensions under Shear

Ronald Blaak·Stefan Auer·Daan Frenkel·Hartmut Lowen
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Abstract

We use Brownian Dynamics simulations in combination with the umbrella sampling technique to study the effect of shear flow on homogeneous crystal nucleation. We find that a homogeneous shear rate leads to a significant suppression of the crystal nucleation rate and to an increase of the size of the critical nucleus. A simple, phenomenological extension of classical nucleation theory accounts for these observations. The orientation of the crystal nucleus is tilted with respect to the shear direction.

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Ronald Blaak, Stefan Auer, Daan Frenkel, Hartmut Lowen. 2004-06-10. Crystal Nucleation of Colloidal Suspensions under Shear. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.93.068303

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