The role of seeds in heterogeneous nucleation, growth and ripening: A quantitative confocal microscopy and scattering study

我们建议定量研究带电荷和不带电荷的硬球和软球(包括二元体系)的非均相成核和生长过程。大的硬质球体和软质球体都会诱发异质形核。晶种的大小，即曲率，对成核和生长的影响，以及对形成的晶体的性质的影响，将在微观的单个颗粒水平上进行定量研究。有关单个颗粒的定量信息将通过共聚焦显微镜获得。我们将继续研究硬球，并开始研究未带电和带电的软球的结晶，即荧光标记的微凝胶粒子。在上一次资助期间，这些颗粒的合成已经建立，它们的性能，如相对较大的尺寸和荧光染料，为计划中的结晶研究进行了优化。

We propose to quantitatively study the process of heterogeneous nucleation and growth of hard and soft spheres with and without charges, including binary systems. Heterogeneous nucleation will be induced by large hard and soft spheres. The effect of the size, i.e. curvature, of the seeds on nucleation and growth as well as on the properties of the formed crystals will be investigated quantitatively on a microscopic, individual particle level. Quantitative information on individual particles will be obtained by confocal microscopy. We will continue to study hard spheres and start to investigate the crystallization of uncharged and charged soft spheres, namely fluorescently-labelled microgel particles. During the last funding period, the synthesis of these particles was established and their properties, such as their relatively large size and uorescent dyes, were optimized for the planned crystallization studies.