Crystallization of anisotropic colloids with a Yukawa potential

TL;DR

This study numerically investigates how anisotropy and coupling strength influence the crystallization of colloidal particles with Yukawa interactions in two dimensions, revealing conditions that promote or hinder crystal formation.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the effects of anisotropy and coupling strength on colloidal crystallization, including phase transition criteria and coexistence regions.

Findings

Strong anisotropy hinders crystallization.

Weak anisotropy with strong coupling promotes hexagonal crystal formation.

Transition regions feature heterogeneous structures and a stretched probability distribution of local order.

Abstract

Crystallization in a dense suspension of anisotropic spherical colloidal particles with a Yukawa potential is numerically investigated in a two-dimensional plane. It is found that a strong anisotropy can hinder the particles from crystallizing, while a weak anisotropy but super-strong coupling facilitates colloids to freeze into a hexagonal crystal. Different criterions are employed to describe the phase transition, one can find that a competition between anisotropic degree and coupling strength shall widened the transition region in the phase diagram, where the heterogeneous structures coexist, which render as a quasi-platform stretched across the probability distribution curve of the local order parameter. Our study maybe helpful for the experiments relating to the crystallizing behavior in statistical physics, materials science and biophysical systems.