Advanced Materials, Vol.9, No.10, 833-835, 1997
Growing large, well-oriented colloidal crystals
Research News: The ability to manipulate colloidal crystallization is a challenging task, a consequence of the size and Brownian motion of the colloid particles. As a direct result, temperature is not a suitable experimental parameter, even though it is important for tuning molecular crystal growth. Large single colloidal crystals with well-defined crystal orientations can, however, be grown through combined use of a polymer template and gravity. This and other methods that have been employed in an attempt to control colloid crystal growth, such as use of external fields, are described.