Self-assembled structures of colloidal dimers and disks on a spherical surface

TL;DR

This study uses Monte Carlo simulations to explore how amphiphilic dimers and guest particles self-assemble on spherical surfaces, revealing diverse aggregate shapes relevant to colloidal systems on curved interfaces.

Contribution

It provides a microscopic simulation-based analysis of colloidal self-assembly on curved surfaces, focusing on the effects of particle composition and size.

Findings

Formation of various aggregate shapes depending on mixture composition

Guest particle size influences aggregate morphology

Simulation results align with experimental observations on oil droplet surfaces

Abstract

We study the self-assembly on a spherical surface of a model for a binary mixture of amphiphilic dimers in the presence of guest particles via Monte Carlo (MC) computer simulation. All particles have a hard core, but one monomer of the dimer also interacts with the guest particle by means of a short-range attractive potential. We observe the formation of aggregates of various shape as a function of the composition of the mixture and of the size of guest particles. Our MC simulations are a further step towards a microscopic understanding of experiments on colloidal aggregation over curved surfaces, such as oil droplets.