Microphase Equilibrium and Assembly Dynamics

Abstract

Despite many attempts, ordered equilibrium microphases have yet to be obtained in experimental colloidal suspensions. The recent computation of the equilibrium phase diagram of a microscopic, particle-based microphase former [Zhuang et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 098301 (2016)] has nonetheless found such mesoscale assemblies to be thermodynamically stable. Here, we consider their equilibrium and assembly dynamics. At intermediate densities above the order-disorder transition, we identify four different dynamical regimes and the structural changes that underlie the dynamical crossovers from one disordered regime to the next. Below the order-disorder transition, we also find that periodic lamellae are the most dynamically accessible of the periodic microphases. Our analysis thus offers a comprehensive view of the disordered microphase dynamics and a route to the assembly of periodic microphases in a putative well-controlled, experimental system.

5 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (13)

• Dynamical Arrest in Attractive Colloids: The Effect of Long-Range Repulsion
• Origin of similarity of phase diagrams in amphiphilic and colloidal systems with competing interactions
• Structural and dynamical features of multiple metastable glassy states in a colloidal system with competing interactions
• Density Functional Simulation of Spontaneous Formation of Vesicle in Block Copolymer Solutions
• Equilibrium Phase Behavior of a Continuous-Space Microphase Former
• Recent Advances in the Theory and Simulation of Model Colloidal Microphase Formers
• Pattern formation and glassy phase in the ${\varphi }^4$ theory with screened electrostatic repulsion
• Equilibrium phase behavior of the square-well linear microphase-forming model
• Assembly of nothing: Equilibrium fluids with designed structured porosity
• Random Isotropic Structures and Possible Glass Transitions in Diblock Copolymer Melts
• Lamellar order, microphase structures and glassy phase in a field theoretic model for charged colloids
• Interactions and design rules for assembly of porous colloidal mesophases
• The nature of slow dynamics in a minimal model of frustration-limited domains

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Effect of aggregation on adsorption phenomena
• Generating dense packings of hard spheres by soft interaction design
• Nonequilibrium phase transitions of sheared colloidal microphases: Results from dynamical density functional theory
• Clustering and assembly dynamics of a one-dimensional microphase former
• Combined density functional and Brazovskii theories for systems with spontaneous inhomogeneities
• Cluster self-assembly condition for arbitrary interaction potentials
• Characterization and Efficient Monte Carlo Sampling of Disordered Microphases
• Ultrasoft classical systems at zero temperature
• Solution of Disordered Microphases in the Bethe approximation
• Postponing the dynamical transition density using competing interactions