Frustration of the isotropic-columnar phase transition of colloidal hard platelets by a transient cubatic phase

Abstract

Using simulations and theory, we show that the cubatic phase is metastable for three model hard platelets. The locally favored structures of perpendicular particle stacks in the fluid prevent the formation of the columnar phase through geometric frustration resulting in vitrification. Also, we find a direct link between structure and dynamic heterogeneities in the cooperative rotation of particle stacks, which is crucial for the devitrification process. Finally, we show that the life time of the glassy cubatic phase can be tuned by surprisingly small differences in particle shape.

Submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett

References in corpus (2)

• Crystallization Mechanism of Hard Sphere Glasses
• Dynamics of uniaxial hard ellipsoids

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Understanding shape entropy through local dense packing
• Entropically Patchy Particles: Engineering Valence through Shape Entropy
• Digital Alchemy for Materials Design: Colloids and Beyond
• Freezing of parallel hard cubes with rounded edges
• Phase diagram of hard board like colloids from computer simulations
• Packing and Self-assembly of Truncated Triangular Bipyramids
• Phase and vacancy behaviour of hard "slanted" cubes
• Generic first-order phase transitions between isotropic and orientational phases with polyhedral symmetries
• Computer simulation study of a mesogenic lattice model based on long-range dispersion interactions