English

Separation and fractionation of order and disorder in highly polydisperse systems

Soft Condensed Matter 2011-08-31 v2

Abstract

Microcanonical Monte Carlo simulations of a polydisperse soft-spheres model for liquids and colloids have been performed for very large polydispersity, in the region where a phase-separation is known to occur when the system (or part of it) solidifies. By studying samples of different sizes, from N=256 to N=864, we focus on the nature of the two distinct coexisting phases. Measurements of crystalline order in particles of different size reveal that the solid phase segregates between a crystalline solid with cubic symmetry and a disordered phase. This phenomenon is termed fractionation.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0910.4924,
  title  = {Separation and fractionation of order and disorder in highly polydisperse systems},
  author = {L. A. Fernandez and V. Martin-Mayor and B. Seoane and P. Verrocchio},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0910.4924},
  year   = {2011}
}

Comments

8 pages, 5 figures