Reentrant phase behaviour for systems with competition between phase separation and self-assembly
Abstract
In patchy particle systems where there is competition between the self-assembly of finite clusters and liquid-vapour phase separation, reentrant phase behaviour is observed, with the system passing from a monomeric vapour phase to a region of liquid-vapour phase coexistence and then to a vapour phase of clusters as the temperature is decreased at constant density. Here, we present a classical statistical mechanical approach to the determination of the complete phase diagram of such a system. We model the system as a van der Waals fluid, but one where the monomers can assemble into monodisperse clusters that have no attractive interactions with any of the other species. The resulting phase diagrams show a clear region of reentrance. However, for the most physically reasonable parameter values of the model, this behaviour is restricted to a certain range of density, with phase separation still persisting at high densities.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1010.4676,
title = {Reentrant phase behaviour for systems with competition between phase separation and self-assembly},
author = {Aleks Reinhardt and Alexander J. Williamson and Jonathan P. K. Doye and Jesús Carrete and Luis M. Varela and Ard A. Louis},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1010.4676},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
13 pages, 10 figures