Shape Allophiles Improve Entropic Assembly

Abstract

We investigate a class of "shape allophiles" that fit together like puzzle pieces as a method to access and stabilize desired structures by controlling directional entropic forces. Squares are cut into rectangular halves, which are shaped in an allophilic manner with the goal of re-assembling the squares while self-assembling the square lattice. We examine the assembly characteristics of this system via the potential of mean force and torque, and the fraction of particles that entropically bind. We generalize our findings and apply them to self-assemble triangles into a square lattice via allophilic shaping. Through these studies we show how shape allophiles can be useful in assembling and stabilizing desired phases with appropriate allophilic design.

17 pages, 7 figures. Published as E. S. Harper, R. L. Marson, J. A. Anderson, G. van Anders, and S. C. Glotzer, Soft Matter, 2015, DOI: 10.1039/c5sm01351h

References in corpus (4)

• Strong scaling of general-purpose molecular dynamics simulations on GPUs
• Understanding shape entropy through local dense packing
• Two-dimensional melting under quenched disorder
• Shape Allophiles Improve Entropic Assembly

Cited by in corpus (5)

• freud: A Software Suite for High Throughput Analysis of Particle Simulation Data
• Scalable Metropolis Monte Carlo for simulation of hard shapes
• Digital Alchemy for Materials Design: Colloids and Beyond
• Shape Allophiles Improve Entropic Assembly
• A Critical Edge Number Revealed for Phase Stabilities of Two-Dimensional Ball-Stick Polygons