Fine-Tuning of Colloidal Polymer Crystals by Molecular Simulation
Abstract
Through extensive molecular simulations we determine a phase diagram of attractive, flexible polymer chains in two and three dimensions. A surprisingly rich collection of distinct crystal morphologies appear, which can be finely tuned through the range of attraction. In three dimensions these include the face centered cubic, hexagonal close packed, simple hexagonal and body centered cubic crystals and the Frank-Kasper phase. A simple geometric model is proposed, based on the concept of cumulative neighbours of ideal crystals, which can accurately predict most of the observed structures and the corresponding transitions. The attraction range can thus be considered as an adjustable parameter for the design of colloidal polymer crystals with tailored morphologies.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2305.04902,
title = {Fine-Tuning of Colloidal Polymer Crystals by Molecular Simulation},
author = {Miguel Herranz and Clara Pedrosa and Daniel Martinez-Fernandez and Katerina Foteinopoulou and Nikos Ch. Karayiannis and Manuel Laso},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2305.04902},
year = {2023}
}
Comments
11 pages, 9 figures