Gazing into crystal balls to advance understanding of crystal formation

Researchers at The University of Tokyo Institute of Industrial Science conducted simulations considering and neglecting hydrodynamic interactions to determine whether or not these interactions cause the large discrepancy observed between experimental and calculated nucleation rates for hard-sphere colloidal systems, which are used to model crystallization. The team obtained similar nucleation rates from both simulations, clarifying that hydrodynamic interactions cannot explain the mismatch observed between actual and simulated nucleation rates for hard-sphere systems.