We investigate the effect of interaction range on the phase behaviour of Janus particles with a Kern-Frenkel potential. Specifically, we study interaction ranges Δ = 0.1σ, 0.3σ, 0.4σ, 0.5σ with σ the particle diameter, and use variable box shape simulations to predict crystal structures. We found that changing the interaction range beyond 0.2σ drastically increases the variety of possible crystal structures. In addition to close-packed structures, we find body-centered tetragonal and AA-stacked hexagonal crystals, as well as several lamellar crystals. For long interaction ranges and low temperatures, we also observe an extremely large number of metastable structures which compete with the thermodynamically stable ones. These competing structures hinder the detection of the lowest-energy crystal structures, and are also likely to interfere with the spontaneous formation of the ground-state structure. Finally, we determine the gas-liquid coexistence curves for several interaction ranges, and observe that these are metastable with respect to crystallization.
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14 August 2016
Research Article|
August 11 2016
Crystals of Janus colloids at various interaction ranges
Z. Preisler;
Z. Preisler
1Dipartimento di Fisica,
Università di Roma “Sapienza,”
Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Roma, Italy
2Soft Condensed Matter, Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science,
Utrecht University
, Princetonplein 5, 3584 CC Utrecht, The Netherlands
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T. Vissers;
T. Vissers
1Dipartimento di Fisica,
Università di Roma “Sapienza,”
Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Roma, Italy
3SUPA and School of Physics and Astronomy,
The University of Edinburgh
, James Clerk Maxwell Building, Peter Guthrie Tait Road, Edinburgh EH9 3FD, United Kingdom
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F. Smallenburg
;
F. Smallenburg
1Dipartimento di Fisica,
Università di Roma “Sapienza,”
Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Roma, Italy
4Institut für Theoretische Physik II: Weiche Materie,
Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
, Universitätsstr. 1, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany
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F. Sciortino
F. Sciortino
1Dipartimento di Fisica,
Università di Roma “Sapienza,”
Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Roma, Italy
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J. Chem. Phys. 145, 064513 (2016)
Article history
Received:
April 23 2016
Accepted:
July 24 2016
Citation
Z. Preisler, T. Vissers, F. Smallenburg, F. Sciortino; Crystals of Janus colloids at various interaction ranges. J. Chem. Phys. 14 August 2016; 145 (6): 064513. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4960423
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