Alfons van Blaaderen

Publications (230) View all

• Article: Erratum to: Anisotropic colloids through non-trivial buckling

  C. Quilliet, C. Zoldesi, C. Riera, A. van Blaaderen, A. Imhof
  The European Physical Journal E 04/2012; 32(4):419-420. · 1.94 Impact Factor
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  Available from: Alfons van Blaaderen

  Article: Anisotropic colloids through non-trivial buckling

  C. Quilliet, C. Zoldesi, C. Riera, A. van Blaaderen, A. Imhof
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  ABSTRACT: We present a study on buckling of colloidal particles, including experimental, theoretical and numerical developments. Oil-filled thin shells prepared by emulsion templating show buckling in mixtures of water and ethanol, due to dissolution of the core in the external medium. This leads to conformations with a single depression, either axisymmetric or polygonal depending on the geometrical features of the shells. These conformations could be theoretically and/or numerically reproduced in a model of homogeneous spherical thin shells with bending and stretching elasticity, submitted to an isotropic external pressure. PACS46.32.+x Static buckling and instability-82.70.Dd Colloids-89.75.Kd Patterns
  The European Physical Journal E 04/2012; 27(1):13-20. · 1.94 Impact Factor
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  Available from: Alfons van Blaaderen

  Article: Self-assembly of a colloidal interstitial solid with tunable sublattice doping.

  L Filion, M Hermes, R Ni, E C M Vermolen, A Kuijk, C G Christova, J C P Stiefelhagen, T Vissers, A van Blaaderen, M Dijkstra
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  ABSTRACT: We determine the phase diagram of a binary mixture of small and large hard spheres with a size ratio of 0.3 using free-energy calculations in Monte Carlo simulations. We find a stable binary fluid phase, a pure face-centered-cubic (fcc) crystal phase of the small spheres, and binary crystal structures with LS and LS(6) stoichiometries. Surprisingly, we demonstrate theoretically and experimentally the stability of a novel interstitial solid solution in binary hard-sphere mixtures, which is constructed by filling the octahedral holes of an fcc crystal of large spheres with small spheres. We find that the fraction of octahedral holes filled with a small sphere can be completely tuned from 0 to 1. Additionally, we study the hopping of the small spheres between neighboring octahedral holes, and interestingly, we find that the diffusion increases upon increasing the density of small spheres.
  Physical Review Letters 10/2011; 107(16):168302. · 7.37 Impact Factor
• Article: Nucleation of colloidal crystals on configurable seed structures

  M. Hermes, E. C. M. Vermolen, M. E. Leunissen, D.L.J. Vossen, P.D.J. van Oostrum, M. Dijkstra, A. van Blaaderen
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  ABSTRACT: Nucleation is an important stage in the growth of crystals. During this stage, the structure and orientation of a crystal are determined. However, short time- and length-scales make nucleation poorly understood. Micrometer-sized colloidal particles form an ideal model system to study nucleation due to more experimentally accessible time- and length-scales and the possibility to manipulate them individually. Here we report experiments and simulations on nucleation in the bulk of a hard-sphere fluid, initiated by seed structures configured using optical tweezers. We find that the defect topology of the critical nucleus determines the crystal morphology. From the growth of the crystals beyond the critical nucleus size, new insights into the role of defects in crystal growth were gained that are incompatible with the assumption of equilibrium growth. These results explain the complex crystal morphologies observed in experiments on hard spheres.
  Soft Matter 01/2011; 7:4623-4628. · 4.39 Impact Factor
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  Available from: Marjolein Dijkstra

  Article: Fabrication of large binary colloidal crystals with a NaCl structure.

  E C M Vermolen, A Kuijk, L C Filion, M Hermes, J H J Thijssen, M Dijkstra, A van Blaaderen
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  ABSTRACT: Binary colloidal crystals offer great potential for tuning material properties for applications in, for example, photonics, semiconductors and spintronics, because they allow the positioning of particles with quite different characteristics on one lattice. For micrometer-sized colloids, it is believed that gravity and slow crystallization rates hinder the formation of high-quality binary crystals. Here, we present methods for growing binary colloidal crystals with a NaCl structure from relatively heavy, hard-sphere-like, micrometer-sized silica particles by exploring the following external fields: electric, gravitational, and dielectrophoretic fields and a structured surface (colloidal epitaxy). Our simulations show that the free-energy difference between the NaCl and NiAs structures, which differ in their stacking of the hexagonal planes of the larger spheres, is very small (approximately 0.002 k(B)T). However, we demonstrate that the fcc stacking of the large spheres, which is crucial for obtaining the pure NaCl structure, can be favored by using a combination of the above-mentioned external fields. In this way, we have successfully fabricated large, 3D, oriented single crystals having a NaCl structure without stacking disorder.
  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 09/2009; 106(38):16063-7. · 9.68 Impact Factor