INTERFACIAL FREE-ENERGY BETWEEN HARD-SPHERE SOLIDS AND FLUIDS

Recent density functional studies on the hard-sphere solid-fluid interface (Phys. Rev. Lett. 1987, 59, 1228; Phys. Rev. E 1993, 47, 1212) predict an interfacial free energy of gamma almost-equal-to 0.6kT/sigma2. We interpret the experiments by Dhont, Smits, and Lekkerkerker (J. Colloid Interface Sci. 1992, 152, 386) on the disorder to order transition kinetics in a model hard-sphere colloidal suspension in terms of a nucleation and growth model to determine the solid-fluid interfacial free energy in the hard-sphere system. We find gamma = (0.55 +/- 0.02)kT/sigma2, in very good agreement with the theoretical predictions.