Accelerated annealing of colloidal crystal monolayers by means of cyclically applied electric fields.

External fields are commonly applied to accelerate colloidal crystallization; however, accelerated self-assembly kinetics can negatively impact the quality of crystal structures. We show that cyclically applied electric fields can produce high quality colloidal crystals by annealing local disorder. We find that the optimal off-duration for maximum annealing is approximately one-half of the characteristic melting half lifetime of the crystalline phase.

Anisotropy effects on the kinetics of colloidal crystallization and melting: comparison of spheres and ellipsoids.

We use alternating current (AC) electric field assisted self-assembly to produce two-dimensional, millimeter scale arrays of ellipsoidal colloids and study the kinetics of their phase reconfiguration by means of confocal microscopy, light scattering, and computer simulation. We find that the kinetics of orientational and positional ordering can be manipulated by changing the shape of the colloids: ellipsoids with aspect ratio 2.0 melt into disordered structures 5.