Designing a bernal spiral from patchy colloids

J.W.R. Morgan, D. Chakrabarti, N. Dorsaz, D.J. Wales

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

35 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

A model potential for colloidal building blocks is defined with two different types of attractive surface sites, described as complementary patches and antipatches. A Bernal spiral is identified as the global minimum for clusters with appropriate arrangements of three patch-antipatch pairs. We further derive a minimalist design rule with only one patch and antipatch, which also produces a Bernal spiral. Monte Carlo simulations of these patchy colloidal building blocks in the bulk are generally found to corroborate the global optimization results.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1246-1256
Number of pages11
JournalACS Nano
Volume7
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 26 Feb 2013

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