Self-assembly of amphiphilic Janus particles at planar walls: A density functional study

Abstract

We investigate the structure formation of amphiphilic molecules at planar walls using density functional theory. The molecules are modeled as (hard) spheres composed of a hydrophilic and hydrophobic part. The orientation of the resulting Janus-particles is described as a vector representing an internal degree of freedom. Our density functional approach involves Fundamental Measure Theory combined with a mean-field approximation for the anisotropic interaction. Considering neutral, hydrophilic and hydrophobic walls, we study the adsorption of the particles, focussing on the competition between the surface field and interact ion-induced ordering phenomena. Finally, we consider systems confined between two planar walls. It is shown that the anisotropic Janus interaction yields pronounced frustration effects at low temperatures.

11 pages

References in corpus (3)

• Phase diagram of Janus Particles
• Density functional theory for hard-sphere mixtures: the White-Bear version Mark II
• Surface Aggregate Structure of Nonionic Surfactants on Silica Nanoparticles

Cited by in corpus (8)

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• Confinement effects on the properties of Janus dimers
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