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Updated: Jun 20, 2026

Confocal Imaging of Confined Quiescent and Flowing Colloid-polymer Mixtures
Published on: May 20, 2014
The equilibrium intrinsic crystal-liquid interface of colloids
Jessica Hernández-Guzmán1, Eric R Weeks
1Department of Physics, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA.
Abstract:
We use confocal microscopy to study an equilibrated crystal-liquid interface in a colloidal suspension. Capillary waves roughen the surface, but locally the intrinsic interface is sharply defined. We use local measurements of the structure and dynamics to characterize the intrinsic interface, and different measurements find slightly different widths of this interface. In terms of the particle diameter d, this width is either 1.5d (based on structural information) or 2.4d (based on dynamics), both not much larger than the particle size. This work is the first direct experimental visualization of an equilibrated crystal-liquid interface.
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