Ground State Configurations and Metastable Phases of Charged Linear Rods.

ABSTRACT: This computational study investigates the energy minimum, that is, ground state, of suspensions of monodisperse (single-component) charged linear rods at various densities and screening lengths. We find that closed-packed unidirectional configurations have the lowest energies for all studied cases. We further specify the lattice parameters for these crystalline structures. In addition, we identify a few metastable phases, including heliconical structures. These metastable heliconical phases are composed of hexagonal smectic C layers with particle orientations forming a conical helicoid with a short pitch of three layers. We evidence this by zero-temperature Monte Carlo simulations starting from an energy-minimized hexagonal cholesteric configuration, which rapidly transforms to a heliconic

SUBMITTER: Sewring T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9933468 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature