2005/02/24 by Andreja Šarlah, A. Sarlah, Thomas Franosch +3
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Material Dynamics and Properties #Theoretical and Computational Physics #cond-mat.soft #cond-mat.stat-mech #nanoparticles nucleation surface interactions
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.95.088302
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 088302 (2005) · 10 pages, 4 figures
arxiv created 2005/02/24 · openalex publication_date 2005/08/17 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The phase behavior of a two-dimensional colloidal system subject to a commensurate triangular potential is investigated. We consider the integer number of colloids in each potential minimum as rigid composite objects with effective discrete degrees of freedom. It is shown that there is a rich variety of phases including "herringbone" and "Japanese 6 in 1" phases. The ensuing phase diagram and phase transitions are analyzed analytically within variational mean-field theory and supplemented by Monte Carlo simulations. Consequences for experiments are discussed.