Flow induced crystallization of penetrable particles

TL;DR

This study uses dynamical density functional theory to show that shear flow can induce crystallization in soft particle systems by causing particle migration and local density increase.

Contribution

It reveals how shear flow influences crystallization in penetrable particles, highlighting shear-induced particle migration as a key mechanism.

Findings

Shear flow can induce crystallization near the phase boundary.

Particle migration leads to increased local density in the flow center.

Crystallization occurs in low shear gradient regions under flow.

Abstract

For a system of Brownian particles interacting via a soft exponential potential we investigate the interaction between equilibrium crystallization and spatially varying shear flow. For thermodynamic state points within the liquid part of the phase diagram, but close to the crystallization phase boundary, we observe that imposing a Poiseuille flow can induce nonequilibrium crystalline ordering in regions of low shear gradient. The physical mechanism responsible for this phenomenon is shear induced particle migration, which causes particles to drift preferentially towards the center of the flow channel, thus increasing the local density in the channel center. The method employed is classical dynamical density functional theory.