Issue 2, 2024
From the journal:

Soft Matter

Self-assembly of colloids with competing interactions confined in spheres

Ningyi Li,†a   Junhong Li,†a   Lijingting Qing,a   Shicheng Ma,a   Yao Li ORCID logo *a  and  Baohui Li ORCID logo a  

* Corresponding authors

a School of Physics, Key Laboratory of Functional Polymer Materials of Ministry of Education, Nankai University, and Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemical Science and Engineering (Tianjin), Tianjin, China
E-mail: liyao@nankai.edu.cn

Abstract

At low temperatures, colloidal particles with short-range attractive and long-range repulsive interactions can form various periodic microphases in bulk. In this paper, we investigate the self-assembly behaviour of colloids with competing interactions under spherical confinement by conducting molecular dynamics simulations. We find that the cluster, mixture, cylindrical, perforated lamellar and lamellar structures can be obtained, but the details of the ordered structures are different from those in bulk systems. Interestingly, the system tends to form more perforated structures when confined in smaller spheres. The mechanism behind this phenomenon is driven by the relationship between the energy of the ordered structures and the bending of the confinement wall, which is different from the mechanism in copolymer systems.

Graphical abstract: Self-assembly of colloids with competing interactions confined in spheres

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/D3SM01227A
Article type
Paper
Submitted
14 Sep 2023
Accepted
17 Nov 2023
First published
20 Nov 2023

Soft Matter, 2024,20, 304-314

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Self-assembly of colloids with competing interactions confined in spheres

N. Li, J. Li, L. Qing, S. Ma, Y. Li and B. Li, Soft Matter, 2024, 20, 304 DOI: 10.1039/D3SM01227A

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