Unveiling Crystalline Order from Glassy Behavior of Charged Rods at Very Low Salt Concentrations
Fuente:
arXiv
Enregistré dans:
| Auteurs principaux: | , , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Preprint |
| Publié: |
2025
|
| Sujets: | |
| Accès en ligne: | |
| Tags: |
Ajouter un tag
Pas de tags, Soyez le premier à ajouter un tag!
|
| _version_ | 1866910881599717376 |
|---|---|
| author | Anop, Hanna Compare, Laura Dal Nallet, Frederic Giacometti, Achille Grelet, Eric |
| author_facet | Anop, Hanna Compare, Laura Dal Nallet, Frederic Giacometti, Achille Grelet, Eric |
| contents | Charged colloids can form ordered structures like Wigner crystals or glasses at very low concentrations due to long-range electrostatic repulsions. Here, we combine small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) and optical experiments with simulations to investigate the phase behavior of charged rodlike colloids across a wide range of salt concentrations and packing fractions. At ultra low ionic strength and packing fractions, we reveal both experimentally and numerically a direct transition from a nematic to a crystalline smectic-B phase, previously identified as a glass state. This transition, bypassing the smectic-A intermediate phase, results from minimizing Coulomb repulsion and maximizing entropic gains due to fluctuations in the crystalline structure. This demonstrates how long-range electrostatic repulsion significantly alters the phase behavior of rod-shaped particles and highlights its key-role in driving the self-organization of anisotropic particles. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_18920 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Unveiling Crystalline Order from Glassy Behavior of Charged Rods at Very Low Salt Concentrations Anop, Hanna Compare, Laura Dal Nallet, Frederic Giacometti, Achille Grelet, Eric Soft Condensed Matter Charged colloids can form ordered structures like Wigner crystals or glasses at very low concentrations due to long-range electrostatic repulsions. Here, we combine small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) and optical experiments with simulations to investigate the phase behavior of charged rodlike colloids across a wide range of salt concentrations and packing fractions. At ultra low ionic strength and packing fractions, we reveal both experimentally and numerically a direct transition from a nematic to a crystalline smectic-B phase, previously identified as a glass state. This transition, bypassing the smectic-A intermediate phase, results from minimizing Coulomb repulsion and maximizing entropic gains due to fluctuations in the crystalline structure. This demonstrates how long-range electrostatic repulsion significantly alters the phase behavior of rod-shaped particles and highlights its key-role in driving the self-organization of anisotropic particles. |
| title | Unveiling Crystalline Order from Glassy Behavior of Charged Rods at Very Low Salt Concentrations |
| topic | Soft Condensed Matter |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.18920 |