Issue 14, 2016

Fabricating large two-dimensional single colloidal crystals by doping with active particles

Abstract

Using simulations we explore the behaviour of two-dimensional colloidal (poly)crystals doped with active particles. We show that these active dopants can provide an elegant new route to removing grain boundaries in polycrystals. Specifically, we show that active dopants both generate and are attracted to defects, such as vacancies and interstitials, which leads to clustering of dopants at grain boundaries. The active particles both broaden and enhance the mobility of the grain boundaries, causing rapid coarsening of the crystal domains. The remaining defects recrystallize upon turning off the activity of the dopants, resulting in a large-scale single-domain crystal.

Graphical abstract: Fabricating large two-dimensional single colloidal crystals by doping with active particles

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
06 Jan 2016
Accepted
22 Feb 2016
First published
22 Feb 2016
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Soft Matter, 2016,12, 3406-3411

Fabricating large two-dimensional single colloidal crystals by doping with active particles

B. van der Meer, L. Filion and M. Dijkstra, Soft Matter, 2016, 12, 3406 DOI: 10.1039/C6SM00031B

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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