Polydisperse hard spheres: crystallization kinetics in small systems and role of local structure

@article{Campo2016PolydisperseHS,
  title={Polydisperse hard spheres: crystallization kinetics in small systems and role of local structure},
  author={Matteo Campo and Thomas Speck},
  journal={Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment},
  year={2016},
  volume={2016}
}
  • Matteo CampoT. Speck
  • Published 30 April 2016
  • Materials Science
  • Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment
We study numerically the crystallization of a hard-sphere mixture with 8% polydispersity. Although often used as a model glass former, for small system sizes we observe crystallization in molecular dynamics simulations. This opens the possibility to study the competition between crystallization and structural relaxation of the melt, which typically is out of reach due to the disparate timescales. We quantify the dependence of relaxation and crystallization times on density and system size. For… 
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