Transition pathways in Cylinder-Gyroid interface

TL;DR

This paper investigates the transition pathways between different interface morphologies in Cylinder-Gyroid systems using the Landau--Brazovskii model, revealing four primary mechanisms and their energy preferences.

Contribution

It introduces a computational approach to identify minimum energy transition pathways in Cylinder-Gyroid interfaces, highlighting multiple formation mechanisms and orientation-dependent energy profiles.

Findings

Four primary transition pathways identified.

Connection types include direct and indirect via Fddd.

Energy dominance varies with displacement and pathway.

Abstract

When two distinct ordered phases contact, the interface may exhibit rich and fascinating structures. Focusing on the Cylinder-Gyroid interface system, transition pathways connecting various interface morphologies are studied armed with the Landau--Brazovskii model. Specifically, minimum energy paths are obtained by computing transition states with the saddle dynamics. We present four primary transition pathways connecting different local minima, representing four different mechanisms of the formation of the Cylinder-Gyroid interface. The connection of Cylinder and Gyroid can be either direct or indirect via Fddd with three different orientations. Under different displacements, each of the four pathways may have the lowest energy.