# Formation of Laves Phases in Repulsive and Attractive Hard Sphere Suspensions

Source: [Formation of Laves Phases in Repulsive and Attractive Hard Sphere Suspensions](<https://www.sota2.com/research/paper/68fa353e1e209131ce89ffce>)

Collection index: [llms.txt](<https://www.sota2.com/research/llms.txt>)

Data updated: 2025-10-24T21:09:19.321Z

Authors: Nicole Schaertl, Thomas Palberg, Eckhard Bartsch

Published: 2017-02-19T23:18:03.000Z

## Abstract

Colloidal Laves phases (LPs) of $MgCu\_2$ type are promising precursors for diamond structure photonic materials. They have been predicted for hard sphere binary mixtures, but not yet observed. We here report a time resolved static light scattering study on their formation in a binary mixture of buoyant experimental hard sphere approximants (size ratio $\\Gamma=0.77$, molar fraction of small spheres $x\_S = 0.76$) for volume fractions between melting and the glass transition. In line with theoretical expectation, all samples form LPs of $MgZn\_2$ structure on the time scale of weeks to months. $MgNi\_2$ structures are absent, $MgCu\_2$ structures and randomly stacked LPs prevail at elevated volume fraction. The addition of small amounts of non-adsorbing polymer switches the interaction to depletion attractive and results in significantly accelerated crystallization kinetics and improved crystal quality.

## Recorded benchmark results

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## Original sources and implementation

[Original paper](<https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.05817>)

[PDF](<https://arxiv.org/pdf/1702.05817.pdf>)