Collective diffusion in a two-dimensional liquid composed of Janus particles

Abstract

The collective diffusion of anisotropic particles in liquids plays a crucial role in many processes, such as self-assembly. The patchy particle, which is usually nearly spherical in shape, is an important anisotropic particle with different properties from other anisotropic particles like the ellipsoid liquid crystal particles. In the present study, molecular dynamics simulations are performed to study the collective diffusion of a two-dimensional anisotropic liquid system composed of Janus particles. The static structures and diffusion behaviours of anisotropic and isotropic Lennard-Jones liquids are compared. The long-time diffusion behaviour of an anisotropic liquid of nearly spherical Janus particles is found to be similar to that of an isotropic liquid because the orientation of the particles disappears over long-term averaging. The anisotropic properties of the Janus particles are mainly reflected in the spatial correlation of particle orientations and mid-time diffusion behaviour. The difference between nearly spherical anisotropic particles and rod-like particles is also discussed in this paper.