2017/02/06 by Nikolaï Lebovka, Nikolai I. Lebovka, Yuri Yu. Tarasevich +2 · 2 citations
Materials Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Chemical physics #Condensed matter physics #Diffusion #Geometry #Ising model #Lattice (music) #Material Dynamics and Properties #Materials science #Mathematics #Monte Carlo method #Physics #Pickering emulsions and particle stabilization #Square (algebra) #Square lattice #Statistical physics #Statistics #Theoretical and Computational Physics #Thermodynamics #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.95.052130
published as Phys. Rev. E 95, 052130 (2017) · 12 pages, 14 figs, 3 videos, 53 refs. Submitted to Phys. Rev. E
arxiv created 2017/02/06 · openalex publication_date 2017/05/18 · arxiv updated 2017/05/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The diffusion-driven self-assembly of rodlike particles was studied by means of Monte Carlo simulation. The rods were represented as linear k-mers (i.e., particles occupying k adjacent sites). In the initial state, they were deposited onto a two-dimensional square lattice of size L×L up to the jamming concentration using a random sequential adsorption algorithm. The size of the lattice, L, was varied from 128 to 2048, and periodic boundary conditions were applied along both x and y axes, while the length of the k-mers (determining the aspect ratio) was varied from 2 to 12. The k-mers oriented along the x and y directions (kx-mers and ky-mers, respectively) were deposited equiprobably. In the course of the simulation, the numbers of intraspecific and interspecific contacts between the same sort and between different sorts of k-mers, respectively, were calculated. Both the shift ratio of the actual number of shifts along the longitudinal or transverse axes of the k-mers and the electrical conductivity of the system were also examined. For the initial random configuration, quite different self-organization behavior was observed for short and long k-mers. For long k-mers (k≥6), three main stages of diffusion-driven spatial segregation (self-assembly) were identified: the initial stage, reflecting destruction of the jamming state; the intermediate stage, reflecting continuous cluster coarsening and labyrinth pattern formation; and the final stage, reflecting the formation of diagonal stripe domains. Additional examination of two artificially constructed initial configurations showed that this pattern of diagonal stripe domains is an attractor, i.e., any spatial distribution of k-mers tends to transform into diagonal stripes. Nevertheless, the time for relaxation to the steady state essentially increases as the lattice size growth.