A common neighbor analysis of crystallization kinetics and excess entropy of charged spherical colloids.

Abstract

The topological analysis tool known as the common neighbor analysis (CNA) is used for the first time in this work to analyze crystallization kinetics and excess entropy of charge-stabilized colloidal suspensions. For this purpose, Brownian dynamics computer simulations are implemented to investigate the crystallization kinetics of homogeneously melted colloidal crystals that are composed of hard-core-screened-Coulomb interacting particles. The results are in agreement with recent static structure factor measurements that could indicate the presence of icosahedral units in the metastable melt, and with the fact that weakly screened charged colloids crystallize into body-centered-cubic (bcc) ordering. A two-step crystallization pathway is found, in which the population of bcc-subunit CNA-pairs satisfactorily obeys a Verhulst model. Moreover, the CNA helped to unveil that the excess entropy obeys a quasi-universal functional form, relating the behavior of colloidal, molecular, and metallic liquid systems. The work contributes to the scientific understanding of the crystallization pathway of charged colloids, and to the development of new ways to assess the degree of crystalline order, starting from the excess entropy.