Self-Assembly Formed by Spherical Patchy Particles with Long-Range Attraction

Abstract

We report on self-assemblies formed from spherical patchy particles interacting by a long-range attraction through a patch region in a two-dimensional system. We performed Monte Carlo simulations to find stable structures in a system with constant number of particles under constant temperature and constant pressure (NPT system), in which particles interact via the Kern–Frenkel potential. For long-range attractive potentials, we describe how these stable structures and their formation depend on the coverage of the patch. Under high pressure, when the coverage is small, triangular lattices are formed as reported in previous papers. From our simulations, we find when the pressure is low short chain-like structures, in which the distance between particles is long, and square clusters, which are not formed with a short-range attractive potential, are formed. When the coverage of the patch region is large, square clusters are formed since the interaction between particles is stronger than that for with small coverage. When the coverage ratio is larger than 0.5, the direction of the patch is perpendicular to the plane in which the particles are placed.