Colloidal crystal

Article By:

Clark, Noel A. Department of Physics and Astrophysics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado.

Last reviewed:January 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.149150

A periodic array of suspended colloidal particles. Common colloidal suspensions (colloids) such as milk, blood, or latex are polydisperse; that is, the suspended particles have a distribution of sizes and shapes. However, suspensions of particles of identical size, shape, and interaction, the so-called monodisperse colloids, do occur. In such suspensions, a new phenomenon that is not found in polydisperse systems, colloidal crystallization, appears: under appropriate conditions, the particles can spontaneously arrange themselves into spatially periodic structures. This ordering is analogous to that of identical atoms or molecules into periodic arrays to form atomic or molecular crystals. However, colloidal crystals are distinguished from molecular crystals, such as those formed by very large protein molecules, in that the individual particles do not have precisely identical internal atomic or molecular arrangements. On the other hand, they are distinguished from periodic stackings of macroscopic objects like cannonballs in that the periodic ordering is spontaneously adopted by the system through the thermal agitation (Brownian motion) of the particles. These conditions limit the sizes of particles which can form colloidal crystals to the range from about 0.01 to about 5 micrometers. See also: Brownian movement; Kinetic theory of matter

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