Entropy-Driven Phase Transitions in Colloids: From spheres to anisotropic particles

Marjolein Dijkstra*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Colloidal particles with anisotropic interactions can be synthesized by controlling the shape of the particles. Exploiting the self-assembly of these novel colloidal building blocks calls for theoretical tools to predict the structure and phase behavior of these particles. This chapter describes an efficient simulation method to predict candidate structures and several techniques to calculate the free energy of the various phases. A natural starting point to study the self-assembled structures of these shape-anisotropic colloidal building blocks is to view them as hard particles. The analysis of hard particles is of fundamental relevance and raises problems that influence fields as diverse as condensed matter, mathematics, and computer science. Finally, the chapter presents an overview and discusses phase diagrams that have been determined using free-energy calculations in Monte Carlo simulations for binary mixtures of hard spheres and hard anisotropic particles.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationADVANCES IN CHEMICAL PHYSICS, VOL 156
EditorsSA Rice, AR Dinner
Place of PublicationHOBOKEN
PublisherWiley
Chapter2
Pages35-71
Number of pages37
ISBN (Print)978-1-118-94969-6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2015

Publication series

NameAdvances in Chemical Physics
PublisherJOHN WILEY & SONS INC
Volume156
ISSN (Print)0065-2385

Keywords

  • MONTE-CARLO-SIMULATION
  • POLYHEDRAL SILVER NANOCRYSTALS
  • CRYSTAL-STRUCTURE PREDICTION
  • HARD-DIMER SYSTEM
  • COMPUTER-SIMULATION
  • MELTING TRANSITION
  • COMPLEX STRUCTURES
  • PHOTONIC CRYSTALS
  • DENSEST PACKINGS
  • BINARY-MIXTURES

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