2006/12/06 by Patrick Pfleiderer, Tanja Schilling · 5 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Liquid Crystal Research Advancements #Material Dynamics and Properties #Polysaccharides Composition and Applications #cond-mat.soft #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.75.020402
published as Phys. Rev. E 75, 020402 (2007) · 4 pages, 4 figures
arxiv created 2006/12/06 · openalex publication_date 2007/02/09 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
We present a computer simulation study on the crystalline phases of hard ellipsoids of revolution. For aspect ratios >or=3 the previously suggested stretched-fcc phase [Frenkel and Mulder, Mol. Phys. 55, 1171 (1985)] is replaced by a different crystalline phase. Its unit cell contains two ellipsoids with unequal orientations. The lattice is simple monoclinic. The angle of inclination of the lattice, beta, is a very soft degree of freedom, while the two right angles are stiff. For one particular value of beta, the close-packed version of this crystal is a specimen of the family of superdense packings recently reported [Donev, Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 255506 (2004)]. These results are relevant for studies of nucleation and glassy dynamics of colloidal suspensions of ellipsoids.