Study confirms the precise nature of fractional crystallization in hard sphere mixtures

Although several past studies have investigated the formation of crystals from identical particles, the conditions under which non-uniform particles crystallize and the crystals resulting from this process are still poorly understood. In a recent study published in Physical Review Letters (PRL), researchers at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg have gathered interesting findings about the formation of complex crystals from size-disperse spheres.