Article Dans Une Revue The Journal of Chemical Physics Année : 2025

Freezing line of polydisperse hard spheres via direct-coexistence simulations

Résumé

In experimental systems, colloidal particles are virtually always at least somewhat polydisperse, which can have profound effects on their ability to crystallize. Unfortunately, accurately predicting the effects of polydispersity on phase behavior using computer simulations remains a challenging task. As a result, our understanding of the equilibrium phase behavior of even the simplest colloidal model system, hard spheres, remains limited. Here, we present a new approach to map out the freezing line of polydisperse systems that draws on direct-coexistence simulations in the semi-grand canonical ensemble. We use this new method to map out the conditions where a hard-sphere fluid with a Gaussian size distribution becomes metastable with respect to partial crystallization into a face-centered-cubic crystal. Consistent with past predictions, we find that as the polydispersity of the fluid increases, the coexisting crystal becomes increasingly size-selective, exhibiting a lower polydispersity and larger mean particle size than the fluid phase. Finally, we exploit our direct-coexistence simulations to examine the characteristics of the fluid-crystal interface, including the surface stress and interfacial absorption.

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Est complété par 10.5281/zenodo.17079905 Jeu de données Castagnède, A., Filion, L., & Smallenburg, F. (2025). Data package for ‘Freezing line of polydisperse hard spheres via direct-coexistence simulations’ [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.17079905

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hal-05380366 , version 1 (24-11-2025)

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Antoine Castagnède, Laura Filion, Frank Smallenburg. Freezing line of polydisperse hard spheres via direct-coexistence simulations. The Journal of Chemical Physics, 2025, 163 (13), pp.134121. ⟨10.1063/5.0281621⟩. ⟨hal-05380366⟩
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