Self-assembly of a colloidal interstitial solid with tunable sublattice doping |
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Authors: | Filion L Hermes M Ni R Vermolen E C M Kuijk A Christova C G Stiefelhagen J C P Vissers T van Blaaderen A Dijkstra M |
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Institution: | Soft Condensed Matter, Debye Institute for NanoMaterials Science, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands. |
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Abstract: | We determine the phase diagram of a binary mixture of small and large hard spheres with a size ratio of 0.3 using free-energy calculations in Monte Carlo simulations. We find a stable binary fluid phase, a pure face-centered-cubic (fcc) crystal phase of the small spheres, and binary crystal structures with LS and LS(6) stoichiometries. Surprisingly, we demonstrate theoretically and experimentally the stability of a novel interstitial solid solution in binary hard-sphere mixtures, which is constructed by filling the octahedral holes of an fcc crystal of large spheres with small spheres. We find that the fraction of octahedral holes filled with a small sphere can be completely tuned from 0 to 1. Additionally, we study the hopping of the small spheres between neighboring octahedral holes, and interestingly, we find that the diffusion increases upon increasing the density of small spheres. |
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