Competing structures in a minimal double-well potential model of condensed matter

Abstract

The microscopic structure of several amorphous substances often reveals complex patterns such as medium- or long-range order, spatial heterogeneity, and even local polycrystallinity. To capture all these features, models usually incorporate a refined description of the particle interaction that includes an ad hoc design of the inside of the system constituents, and use temperature as a control parameter. We show that all these features can emerge from a minimal athermal two-dimensional model where particles interact isotropically by a double-well potential, which includes an excluded volume and a maximum coordination number. The rich variety of structural patterns shown by this simple geometrical model apply to a wide range of real systems including water, silicon, and different amorphous materials.

8 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (10)

• Calcium Carbonate Polyamorphism and Its Role in Biomineralization: How Many Amorphous Calcium Carbonates Are There?
• Generic mechanism for generating a liquid-liquid phase transition
• Ice structures, patterns, and processes: A view across the ice-fields
• Core-softened potentials and the anomalous properties of water
• 2D ice from first principles: structures and phase transitions
• Liquid-liquid transition in supercooled silicon determined by first-principles simulation
• Distinct signature of two local structural motifs of liquid water in the scattering function
• Gelling by Heating
• Edge-Driven Phase Transitions in 2D Ice
• Ice polyamorphism in the minimal Mercedes-Benz model of water