Solidification in model systems of spherical particles with density-dependent interactions

Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz, Institut f. Physik, KOMET 336 Staudinger Weg 7, D-55099 Mainz, Germany

Received: 9 December 2002
Accepted: 4 August 2003

Abstract

We report on the solidification kinetics of deionised aqueous suspensions of charged latex spheres in dependence on the particle density n. Growth velocities were measured by microscopy, nucleation rate densities obtained from average crystallite sizes determined with static light scattering. A quantitative estimate of the chemical-potential difference between melt and solid is derived from the growth data and used for interpretation of nucleation data in terms of classical nucleation theory. Using the long-time self-diffusion coefficient at freezing to approximate the kinetic pre-factor of homogeneous nucleation, we find the surface tensions per squared inter-particle distance to increase roughly linearly from to as n is increased from 24 to 65.