Self-assembly of charged colloidal cubes

Autor(en)

Margaret Rosenberg, Frans Dekker, Joe G. Donaldson, Albert P. Philipse, Sofia Kantorovich

Abstrakt

In this work, we show how and why the interactions between charged cubic colloids range from radially isotropic to strongly directionally anisotropic, depending on tuneable factors. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we illustrate the effects of typical solvents to complement experimental investigations of cube assembly. We find that in low-salinity water solutions, where cube self-assembly is observed, the colloidal shape anisotropy leads to the strongest attraction along the corner-to-corner line, followed by edge-to-edge, with a face-to-face configuration of the cubes only becoming energetically favorable after the colloids have collapsed into the van der Waals attraction minimum. Analysing the potential of mean force between colloids with varied cubicity, we identify the origin of the asymmetric microstructures seen in experiment.

Organisation(en)

Computergestützte Physik und Physik der Weichen Materie

Externe Organisation(en)

Utrecht University, Ural Federal University

Journal

Soft Matter

Band

16

Seiten

4451-4461

Anzahl der Seiten

11

ISSN

1744-683X

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1039/c9sm02189b

Publikationsdatum

05-2020

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

103015 Kondensierte Materie

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Condensed Matter Physics, Allgemeine Chemie

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/8961ac2f-2c2c-4b26-8d94-efb3d5a3f462