Entropy-Driven Phase Transitions in Colloidal Systems

Abstract: This thesis can be divided into two independent parts. In the first part of this thesis, we focus on studying the kinetic pathways of nucleation in colloidal systems. In Chapter 2, we briefly introduce the relevant theory of nucleation, i.e., classic nucleation theory. Then in Chapter 3, we investigate the crystal nucleation in the "simplest" model system for colloids, i.e., the monodisperse hard-sphere system, by using three different simulation methods, i.e., molecular dynamics, forward flux sampling and umbrella sampling simulations. Subsequently, we apply our simulation methods to a more realistic system of colloidal hard spheres in Chapter 4. Furthermore, we study the nucleation in a variety of systems consisting of hard particles, i.e., hard dumbbells (Chapter 5), hard rods (Chapter 6), hard colloidal polymers (Chapter 7) and binary hard-sphere mixtures (Chapter 8). In the second part of this thesis, we study the phase behavior of several colloidal systems. In Chapter 9, we study the equilibrium phase diagram of colloidal hard superballs whose shape interpolates from cubes to octahedra via spheres. We investigate the micellization of asymmetric patchy dumbbells induced by the depletion attraction in Chapter 10.