Quasicrystalline order and a crystal-liquid state in a soft-core fluid

TL;DR

This study explores a 2D soft-particle system revealing fluid, crystalline, and exotic crystal-liquid phases, with quasicrystalline structures emerging from competing instabilities, advancing understanding of complex soft matter states.

Contribution

It introduces a novel soft-core fluid model exhibiting quasicrystals and a crystal-liquid state, combining density functional theory and simulations to uncover new phase behaviors.

Findings

Identification of fluid, crystalline, and crystal-liquid phases.

Discovery of quasicrystalline structures near phase transitions.

Observation of highly mobile particles within a crystalline matrix.

Abstract

A two-dimensional system of soft particles interacting via a two-length-scale potential is studied. Density functional theory and Brownian dynamics simulations reveal a fluid phase and two crystalline phases with different lattice spacing. Of these the larger lattice spacing phase can form an exotic periodic state with a fraction of highly mobile particles: a crystal liquid. Near the transition between this phase and the smaller lattice spacing phase, quasicrystalline structures may be created by a competition between linear instability at one scale and nonlinear selection of the other.