Temperature (de)activated patchy colloidal particles

TL;DR

This paper introduces a temperature-controlled patchy particle model, analyzing its thermodynamics and percolation behavior, revealing complex phase phenomena like reentrant percolation and critical points.

Contribution

It presents a novel temperature-activated interaction model for patchy particles and applies theoretical methods to explore its complex phase behavior.

Findings

Reentrant percolation observed

Lower critical points identified

Rich phase behavior demonstrated

Abstract

We present a new model of patchy particles in which the interaction sites can be activated or deactivated by varying the temperature of the system. We study the thermodynamics of the system by means of Wertheim's first order perturbation theory, and use Flory-Stockmayer theory of polymerization to analyse the percolation threshold. We find a very rich phase behaviour including lower critical points and reentrant percolation.