Colloidal systems with competing interactions: from an arrested repulsive cluster phase to a gel

Abstract

We report an extensive numerical study of a charged colloidal system with competing short-range depletion attraction and long-range electrostatic repulsion. By analizing the cluster properties, we identify two distinct regions in the phase diagram: a state composed of stable finite-size clusters, whose relative interactions are dominated by long-range repulsion, and a percolating network. Both states are found to dynamically arrest at low temperatures, providing evidence of the existence of two distinct non-ergodic states in these systems: a Wigner glass of clusters and a gel.

10 figures, to be published in Soft Matter

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• Probabilistic inverse design for self assembling materials
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• Geometric frustration in small colloidal clusters
• Origin and Detection of Microstructural Clustering in Fluids with Spatial-Range Competitive Interactions
• Fluids with competing interactions: I. Decoding the structure factor to detect and characterize self-limited clustering
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• Tuning the rheological behavior of colloidal gels through competing interactions
• Fluids with competing interactions: II. Validating a free energy model for equilibrium cluster size
• Clustering and assembly dynamics of a one-dimensional microphase former
• Effect of mesoscopic fluctuations on equation of state in cluster-forming systems
• Monte Carlo Study of the Axial Next-Nearest-Neighbor Ising Model
• A Monte Carlo Approach for Studying Microphases Applied to the Axial Next-Nearest-Neighbor Ising and the Ising-Coulomb Models
• Universal reshaping of arrested colloidal gels via active doping
• Cluster crystals for Brownian particles with combined soft and hard-core repulsive interactions
• Simulation of a two-dimensional model for colloids in a uniaxial electric field
• Orientational ordering of lamellar structures on closed surfaces
• The Role of Pressure in Inverse Design for Assembly
• A Minimal description of morphological hierarchy in two-dimensional aggregates
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• Structural and dynamical properties of gel networks
• Shear induced ordering in systems with competing interactions: A machine learning study
• Is directed percolation in colloid-polymer mixtures linked to dynamic arrest?
• Viscoelastic multiscaling in immersed networks
• Self-consistent theory for inhomogeneous systems with mesoscopic fluctuations
• Clustering in quasi-two-dimensional dispersions of Brownian particles with competitive interactions: Phase diagram and structural properties
• Characterization and Efficient Monte Carlo Sampling of Disordered Microphases
• Solution of Disordered Microphases in the Bethe approximation
• Phonon transport properties of particulate physical gels