2025/07/17 by Thiago Puccinelli, Puccinelli, Thiago, Alexandre Vargas Ilha +3 · 1 citation
Engineering · Materials Science · #Chemical Physics (physics.chem-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Material Dynamics and Properties #Nanomaterials and Printing Technologies #Pickering emulsions and particle stabilization #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2507.13573
openalex publication_date 2025/07/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We investigate the melting behavior of two-dimensional colloidal crystals stabilized by a core-softened potential featuring two competing interaction length scales. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we analyze three polymorphic solid phases -- low-density triangular, stripe, and kagome -- and uncover distinct melting pathways. The triangular and kagome crystals undergo abrupt first-order transitions, driven by the interplay between energetic frustration and structural reorganization. In particular, the LDT phase melts through a sharp transition induced by a crossover between the two characteristic length scales. In contrast, the stripe phase exhibits a continuous transition with liquid-crystalline features: orientational and translational order decay gradually, while intra-stripe mobility persists, consistent with a KTHNY-like scenario. These findings demonstrate that melting in 2D soft-matter systems is inherently non-universal and governed by the competition between lattice symmetry, frustration, and multiple interaction scales. Our results provide microscopic insight into melting mechanisms beyond classical universality classes and offer guiding principles for the design of self-assembled materials with tunable phase behavior.