Publications by authors named "Laura Dal Compare"
Article Synopsis
- The study investigates how Janus rods self-assemble and behave in different phases by using Langevin dynamics simulations and free energy calculations across various temperatures and concentrations.
- The Janus rods are made up of overlapping spheres, some of which have attractive features, and their assembly leads to various structures depending on the coverage of these attractive sites.
- At lower densities, structures like spherical and tubular micelles form, while at higher densities, more complex arrangements like bilayer and smectic phases emerge, showcasing a variety of structural possibilities that could inform the design of new rod-like materials.
The phase diagram of hard helices differs from its hard rods counterpart by the presence of chiral "screw" phases stemming from the characteristic helical shape, in addition to the conventional liquid crystal phases also found for rod-like particles. Using extensive Monte Carlo and Molecular Dynamics simulations, we study the effect of the addition of a short-range attractive tail representing solvent-induced interactions to a fraction of the sites forming the hard helices, ranging from a single-site attraction to fully attractive helices for a specific helical shape. Different temperature regimes exist for different fractions of the attractive sites, as assessed in terms of the relative Boyle temperatures, that are found to be rather insensitive to the specific shape of the helical particle.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF