There have been many microgravity experiments to measure the phase diagram and properties of colloidal hard spheres and in particular their crystal and glass phases. The most recent ISS experiments, summer 2021, using confocal microscopy to investigate structure from the particle to the centimeter scale, show evidence of very large single phase and maybe single crystals filling the capillary. A recreation of the three-dimensional structure from confocal slices indicates the first experimental evidence of an almost pure Face Centered Cubic, FCC, packing. FCC is the computed thermodynamically preferred stacking of the hexagonal planes but only by a fraction of a percent.

Recent experiments on hard sphere colloidal crystallization in microgravity on the international space station

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.