Crystallization and order-disorder transition of colloidal particles in a drying suspension: a phase field crystal approach

TL;DR

This study employs a phase field crystal model to investigate how colloidal particles in a drying suspension transition between ordered and disordered states, revealing phase boundaries and specific lattice arrangements.

Contribution

It introduces a phase field crystal approach to model the structure and dynamics of colloidal suspensions during evaporation, including binary mixtures and phase boundaries.

Findings

Ordered colloids form a 2D triangular lattice.

Binary mixtures exhibit a three sub-lattice order.

Phase boundary between amorphous and crystalline states identified.

Abstract

Using a phase field crystal model we study the structure and dynamics of a drop of colloidal suspension during evaporation of the solvent. We model an experimental system where contact line pinning of the drop on the substrate is non-existent. Under such carefully controlled conditions, evaporation of the drop produces an ordered or disordered arrangement of the colloidal residue depending on the initial average density of solute and the drying rate. We obtain a non-equilibrium phase boundary showing amorphous and crystalline phases of single component and binary mixtures of colloidal particles in the density- drying rate plane. While single component colloids order in the two dimensional triangular lattice, a symmetric binary mixture of mutually repulsive particles orders in a three sub-lattice order where two of the sub-lattices of the triangular lattice are occupied by the two species of particles with the third sub-lattice vacant.