Advanced Colloids Experiment - Temperature 7

The ACE-T7 experiment involves the design and assembly of complex 3D structures from small particles suspended within a fluid medium. These so-called “self-assembled colloidal structures”, are vital to the design of advanced optical materials and active devices. The objective of ACE-T7 was to utilize confocal microscopy for time- and space-resolved, 3D imaging of non-spherical colloids whose phases can be controlled by adding depletants and/or adjusting spatial temperature changes around a particular location. The research goal is to produce cubic colloidal structures, and study the dynamics of crystal nucleation and growth. ACE-T7 varied the size of the depletant in different samples with the goal of seeing the effect on crystallization. The imaging goal was to observe crystallites and resolve particle centroid positions with less than 20% error.