The crystal nucleation theory revisited: The case of 2D colloidal crystals

摘要

Most of the theories and studies of crystallization and crystal nucleation consider the boundaries between the crystallites and the fluid as smooth. The crystallites are the small clusters of atoms, molecules and/or particles with the symmetry of the crystal lattice that, with a slight chance of success, would grow to form the crystal grains. In fact, in the classical nucleation theory, the crystallites are assumed to have a spherical shape (circular in 2D). As far are we are aware, there is only one experimental work I ll on colloidal crystals that founds rough surfaces for the crystallites and for the crystal grains.