Binary hard-sphere mixtures - a comparison between computer-simulation and experiment

The complex crystalline order, recently observed by Bartlett, P., Ottewill, R. H., and Pusey, P. N., 1992, Phys. Rev. Lett., 68, 3801, in asymmetric binary hard-sphere mixtures is discussed in detail. Experimental observations on phase separation in a complex fluid, a binary suspension of near hard-sphere colloids, are compared with phase diagrams obtained from computer simulations of an atomic hard-sphere liquid. Although there is in general a close degree of agreement between experiment and theory, a detailed comparison shows several unexpected differences. These differences are shown to reflect non-equilibrium effects, and possible reasons for their origin are evaluated.