Removing grain boundaries from three-dimensional colloidal crystals using active dopants.

Using computer simulations we explore how grain boundaries can be removed from three-dimensional colloidal crystals by doping with a small fraction of active colloids. We show that for sufficient self-propulsion, the system is driven into a crystal-fluid coexistence. In this phase separated regime, the active dopants become mobile and spontaneously gather at the grain boundaries. The resulting surface melting and recrystallization of domains result in the motion of the grain boundaries over time and lead to the formation of a large single crystal. However, when the self-propulsion is too low to cause a phase separation, we observe no significant enhancement of grain growth.

• Publication year

  2016

• Venue

  Soft Matter

• Publication date

  2016-03-22

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Materials Science, Physics

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1039/c6sm00700garXiv 1603.06856PMID 27257054
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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