2015/06/29 by Naiyin Yu, Yu, Naiyin, Abhijit Ghosh +3
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Material Dynamics and Properties #Pickering emulsions and particle stabilization #Proteins in Food Systems #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1506.08747
9 pages, 8 figures
openalex publication_date 2015/06/29 · arxiv created 2016/06/30 · arxiv updated 2016/07/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We use computer simulations and simple theoretical models to analyze the morphologies that result when rod-like particles end-attach onto a curved surface, creating a finite-thickness monolayer aligned with the surface normal. This geometry leads to two forms of frustration, one associated with the incompatibility of hexagonal order on surfaces with Gaussian curvature, and the second reflecting the deformation of a layer with finite thickness on a surface with non-zero mean curvature. We show that the latter effect leads to a faceting mechanism. Above threshold values of the inter-particle attraction strength and surface mean curvature, the adsorbed layer undergoes a transition from orientational disorder to an ordered state that is demarcated by reproducible patterns of line defects. The number of facets is controlled by the competition between line defect energy and intra-facet strain. Tuning control parameters thus leads to a rich variety of morphologies, including icosahedral particles and irregular polyhedra. In addition to suggesting a new strategy for the synthesis of aspherical particles with tunable symmetries, our results may shed light on recent experiments in which rod-like HIV GAG proteins assemble around nanoscale particles.