Related papers: Self-assembly of hard helices: a rich and unconven…
We investigate the isotropic-to-nematic phase transition in systems of hard helical particles, using Onsager theory and Monte Carlo computer simulations. Motivation of this work resides in the ubiquity of the helical shape motif in many…
The shape of the building blocks plays a crucial role in directing self-assembly towards desired architectures. Out of the many different shapes, helix has a unique position. Helical structures are ubiquitous in nature and a helical shape…
Evidence of a special chiral nematic phase is provided using numerical simulation and Onsager theory for systems of hard helical particles. This phase appears at the high density end of the nematic phase, when helices are well aligned, and…
Recent numerical simulations of hard helical particle systems unveiled the existence of a novel chiral nematic phase, termed screw-like, characterised by the helical organization of the particle C$_2$ symmetry axes round the nematic…
Hard models for particle interactions have played a crucial role in the understanding of the structure of condensed matter. In particular, they help to explain the formation of oriented phases in liquids made of anisotropic molecules or…
We test the performance of a recently proposed fundamental measure density functional of aligned hard cylinders by calculating the phase diagram of a monodisperse fluid of these particles. We consider all possible liquid crystalline…
Soft particles such as microgels and core-shell particles can undergo significant and anisotropic deformations when adsorbed to a liquid interface. This, in turn, leads to a complex phase behavior upon compression. Here we develop a…
We report the phase diagram of two-dimensional hard ellipses as obtained from replica exchange Monte Carlo simulations. The replica exchange is implemented by expanding the isobaric ensemble in pressure. The phase diagram shows four…
We present a molecular simulation study of the structure of linear dendronized polymers. We use excluded volume interactions in the context of a generic coarse-grained molecular model whose geometrical parameters are tuned to represent a…
The rich mesophase polymorhism and the phase sequence of board-like colloids depends critically on their shape anisometry. Implementing extensive Monte Carlo simulations, we calculated the full phase diagram of sterically interacting…
By means of extensive replica-exchange simulations of generic coarse-grained models for helical polymers, we systematically investigate the structural transitions into all possible helical phases for flexible and semiflexible elastic…
The intrinsic property of proteins to form structural motifs such as alpha-helices and beta-sheets leads to a complex phase behavior in which proteins can assemble into various types of aggregates including crystals, liquidlike phases of…
Helices are not generic outcomes of polymer collapse. Collapsed conformations of semiflexible polymers with isotropic attractions typically form globules, toroids, or rod-like structures, as seen in simulations and described by…
Monte Carlo simulations and finite-size scaling analysis have been carried out to study the critical behavior in a two-dimensional system of particles with two bonding sites that, by decreasing temperature or increasing density, polymerize…
The stability of liquid crystal phases in presence of small amount of non-mesogenic impurities is of general interest for a large spectrum of technological applications and in the theories of binary mixtures. Starting from the known phase…
Sought-after ordered structures of mixtures of hard anisotropic nanoparticles can often be thermodynamically unfavorable due to the components' geometric incompatibility to densely pack into regular lattices. A simple compatibilization rule…
In recent work we revisited the phase diagram of hard ellipsoids of revolution (spheroids) by means of replica exchange Monte Carlo simulations. This was done by setting random initial configurations, and allows to confirm the formation of…
We use numerical simulations to understand how random deviations from the ideal spherical shape affect the ability of hard particles to form fcc crystalline structures. Using a system of hard spheres as a reference, we determine the…
The structure of a polystyrene matrix filled with tightly cross-linked polystyrene nanoparticles, forming an athermal nanocomposite system, is investigated by means of a Monte Carlo sampling formalism. The polymer chains are represented as…
A system that possesses translational symmetry but breaks orientational symmetry is known as a nematic phase. While there are many examples of nematic phases in a wide range of contexts, such as in liquid crystals, complex oxides, and…