Phase diagram of SALR fluids on spherical surfaces

TL;DR

This paper explores the phase diagram of SALR fluids confined to spherical surfaces, identifying various inhomogeneous phases such as cluster crystals, stripes, and bubble crystals, influenced by system size and interaction potential features.

Contribution

It derives a stability criterion for SALR fluids on spheres and characterizes diverse inhomogeneous phases using mean-field density functional theory, highlighting finite size effects.

Findings

Identification of inhomogeneous phases: cluster crystals, stripes, bubble crystals.

Finite size effects lead to richer phase behavior at smaller densities.

The negative minimum of the potential expansion influences phase periodicity.

Abstract

We investigate the phase diagram of a fluid of hard-core disks confined to the surface of a sphere and whose interaction potential contains a short-range attraction followed by a long-range repulsive tail (SALR). Based on previous works in the bulk we derive a stability criterion for the homogeneous phase of the fluid, and locate a region of instability linked to the presence of a negative minimum in the spherical harmonics expansion of the interaction potential. The inhomogeneous phases contained within this region are characterized using a mean-field density functional theory. We find several inhomogeneous patterns that can be separated into three broad classes: cluster crystals, stripes, and bubble crystals, each containing topological defects. Interestingly, while the periodicity of inhomogeneous phases at large densities is mainly determined by the position of the negative minimum of the potential expansion, the finite size of the system induces a richer behavior at smaller densities.