Search results for "Condensed Matter - Soft Condensed Matter"
showing 10 items of 364 documents
Precursor-mediated crystallization process in suspensions of hard spheres.
2010
We report on a large scale computer simulation study of crystal nucleation in hard spheres. Through a combined analysis of real and reciprocal space data, a picture of a two-step crystallization process is supported: First dense, amorphous clusters form which then act as precursors for the nucleation of well-ordered crystallites. This kind of crystallization process has been previously observed in systems that interact via potentials that have an attractive as well as a repulsive part, most prominently in protein solutions. In this context the effect has been attributed to the presence of metastable fluid-fluid demixing. Our simulations, however, show that a purely repulsive system (that ha…
Do the contact angle and line tension of surface-attached droplets depend on the radius of curvature?
2018
Results from Monte Carlo simulations of wall-attached droplets in the three-dimensional Ising lattice gas model and in a symmetric binary Lennard-Jones fluid, confined by antisymmetric walls, are analyzed, with the aim to estimate the dependence of the contact angle $(\Theta)$ on the droplet radius $(R)$ of curvature. Sphere-cap shape of the wall-attached droplets is assumed throughout. An approach, based purely on "thermodynamic" observables, e.g., chemical potential, excess density due to the droplet, etc., is used, to avoid ambiguities in the decision which particles belong (or do not belong, respectively) to the droplet. It is found that the results are compatible with a variation $[\Th…
Seedless assembly of colloidal crystals by inverted micro-fluidic pumping
2018
We propose a simple seedless approach to assemble millimeter sized monolayer single colloidal crystals with desired orientations at predetermined locations on an unstructured charged substrate. This approach utilizes the millimeter-ranged fluid flow on the bottom glass substrate induced by an ion exchange resin (IEX) fixed on top of the closed sample cell. This fluid flow increases with decreasing height of the sample cell and increasing radius R of the IEX. For a single inverted pump, millimeter sized monolayer single crystals of hexagonal close packing can be obtained. For two closely spaced (D ~ 4R) pumps, the formed crystals have a predefined orientation along the line connecting the tw…
Statics and dynamics of colloid-polymer mixtures near their critical point of phase separation: A computer simulation study of a continuous Asakura–O…
2008
We propose a new coarse-grained model for the description of liquid-vapor phase separation of colloid-polymer mixtures. The hard-sphere repulsion between colloids and between colloids and polymers, which is used in the well-known Asakura-Oosawa (AO) model, is replaced by Weeks-Chandler-Anderson potentials. Similarly, a soft potential of height comparable to thermal energy is used for the polymer-polymer interaction, rather than treating polymers as ideal gas particles. It is shown by grand-canonical Monte Carlo simulations that this model leads to a coexistence curve that almost coincides with that of the AO model and the Ising critical behavior of static quantities is reproduced. Then the …
Hiding in plain view: Colloidal self-assembly from polydisperse populations.
2016
We report small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) experiments on aqueous dispersions of colloidal silica with a broad monomodal size distribution (polydispersity 18%, size 8 nm). Over a range of volume fractions the silica particles segregate to build first one, then two distinct sets of colloidal crystals. These dispersions thus demonstrate fractional crystallization and multiple-phase (bcc, Laves AB$_2$, liquid) coexistence. Their remarkable ability to build complex crystal structures from a polydisperse population originates from the intermediate-range nature of interparticle forces, and suggests routes for designing self-assembling colloidal crystals from the bottom-up.
Depletion-induced percolation in networks of nanorods.
2006
Above a certain density threshold, suspensions of rod-like colloidal particles form system-spanning networks. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we investigate how the depletion forces caused by spherical particles affect these networks in isotropic suspensions of rods. Although the depletion forces are strongly anisotropic and favor alignment of the rods, the percolation threshold of the rods decreases significantly. The relative size of the effect increases with the aspect ratio of the rods. The structural changes induced in the suspension by the depletant are characterized in detail and the system is compared to an ideal fluid of freely interpenetrable rods.
Depletion induced isotropic-isotropic phase separation in suspensions of rod-like colloids
2007
When non-adsorbing polymers are added to an isotropic suspension of rod-like colloids, the colloids effectively attract each other via depletion forces. We performed Monte Carlo simulations to study the phase diagram of such rod-polymer mixture. The colloidal rods were modeled as hard spherocylinders; the polymers were described as spheres of the same diameter as the rods. The polymers may overlap with no energy cost, while the overlap of polymers and rods is forbidden. Large amounts of depletant cause phase separation of the mixture. We estimated the phase boundaries of isotropic-isotropic coexistence both in the bulk and in confinement. To determine the phase boundaries we applied the gra…
Effect of mixing and spatial dimension on the glass transition
2009
We study the influence of composition changes on the glass transition of binary hard disc and hard sphere mixtures in the framework of mode coupling theory. We derive a general expression for the slope of a glass transition line. Applied to the binary mixture in the low concentration limits, this new method allows a fast prediction of some properties of the glass transition lines. The glass transition diagram we find for binary hard discs strongly resembles the random close packing diagram. Compared to 3D from previous studies, the extension of the glass regime due to mixing is much more pronounced in 2D where plasticization only sets in at larger size disparities. For small size disparitie…
Mode-coupling theory of the glass transition for confined fluids
2012
We present a detailed derivation of a microscopic theory for the glass transition of a liquid enclosed between two parallel walls relying on a mode-coupling approximation. This geometry lacks translational invariance perpendicular to the walls, which implies that the density profile and the density-density correlation function depends explicitly on the distances to the walls. We discuss the residual symmetry properties in slab geometry and introduce a symmetry adapted complete set of two-point correlation functions. Since the currents naturally split into components parallel and perpendicular to the walls the mathematical structure of the theory differs from the established mode-coupling eq…
Iterative Reconstruction of Memory Kernels.
2017
In recent years, it has become increasingly popular to construct coarse-grained models with non-Markovian dynamics to account for an incomplete separation of time scales. One challenge of a systematic coarse-graining procedure is the extraction of the dynamical properties, namely, the memory kernel, from equilibrium all-atom simulations. In this article, we propose an iterative method for memory reconstruction from dynamical correlation functions. Compared to previously proposed noniterative techniques, it ensures by construction that the target correlation functions of the original fine-grained systems are reproduced accurately by the coarse-grained system, regardless of time step and disc…