Self-assembly of complex structures in colloid-polymer mixtures

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how isotropic pair potentials with multiple length scales can lead to the self-assembly of complex, non-trivial structures in colloid-polymer mixtures, expanding the understanding of phase behavior in such systems.

Contribution

It introduces a new class of enthalpy-like pair potentials and explores their ability to produce diverse complex structures in colloid-polymer mixtures, supported by theoretical and simulation evidence.

Findings

Non-trivial structures occur near specific densities where triangular order is suppressed.

A variety of phases including tilings with different polygons are observed.

Simulations confirm the stability of these phases at finite temperatures.

Abstract

If particles interact according to isotropic pair potentials that favor multiple length scales, in principle a large variety of different complex structures can be achieved by self-assembly. We present, motivate, and discuss a conjecture for the occurrence of non-trivial (i.e., non-triangular) orderings based on newly-introduced enthalpy-like pair potentials, the capability of which we demonstrate for the specific example of colloid-polymer mixtures. Upon examining the phase behavior of two-dimensional colloid-polymer mixtures, which can also be realized in experiments, we observe that non-trivial structures only occur in the vicinity of selected densities where triangular ordering is suppressed by the pair potential. Close to these densities, a large number of different phases self-assemble that correspond to tilings containing triangular, rhombic, square, hexagonal, and pentagonal tiles, and including some of the Archimedean tilings. We obtain the ground-state energies by minimizing the corresponding lattice sums with respect to particle positions in a unit cell as well as cell geometry and verify the occurrence of selected phases at finite temperatures by using Brownian Dynamics simulations. All reported phases should be accessible in experiments and, in addition, our work provides a manual on how to find the regions of non-trivial phases in parameter space for complex pair interactions in general.