Stabilizing quasicrystals composed of patchy colloids by narrowing the patch width

Gemeinhardt A, Martinsons M, Schmiedeberg M (2019)


Publication Language: English

Publication Type: Journal article, Letter

Publication year: 2019

Journal

Book Volume: 126

Article Number: 38001

DOI: 10.1209/0295-5075/126/38001

Abstract

We explore the behavior of two-dimensional patchy colloidal particles with 8 or 10 symmetrically arranged patches by employing Monte Carlo simulations. The particles interact according to an isotropic pair potential that possesses only one typical length. The patches lead to additional attractions that are anisotropic and depend on the relative orientation of two neighboring particles. We investigate the assembled structures with a special interest in quasicrystals. We found that the patch width is of great importance: Only in the case of narrow patch widths we are able to observe metastable octagonal and decagonal quasicrystals, while dodecagonal quasicrystals can also occur for broad patches. These results are important to understand the role of interactions with preferred binding angles in order to obtain quasicrystals. Our findings suggest that in the case of sharp binding angles, as they occur in metallic alloys, octagonal and decagonal symmetries might be observed more often than in systems with less sharp binding angles as it is the case in soft-matter systems where dodecagonal quasicrystals dominate.

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How to cite

APA:

Gemeinhardt, A., Martinsons, M., & Schmiedeberg, M. (2019). Stabilizing quasicrystals composed of patchy colloids by narrowing the patch width. EPL - Europhysics Letters, 126. https://dx.doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/126/38001

MLA:

Gemeinhardt, Anja, Miriam Martinsons, and Michael Schmiedeberg. "Stabilizing quasicrystals composed of patchy colloids by narrowing the patch width." EPL - Europhysics Letters 126 (2019).

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