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Tonti L, García Daza FA, Romero-Enrique JM, Patti A. Structural and dynamical equilibrium properties of hard board-like particles in parallel confinement. J Chem Phys 2024; 160:124903. [PMID: 38533886 DOI: 10.1063/5.0193126] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/21/2023] [Accepted: 03/10/2024] [Indexed: 03/28/2024] Open
Abstract
We performed Monte Carlo and dynamic Monte Carlo simulations to model the diffusion of monodispersed suspensions composed of impenetrable cuboidal particles, specifically hard board-like particles (HBPs), in the presence of parallel hard walls. The impact of the walls was investigated by adjusting the size of the simulation box while maintaining constant packing fractions, fixed at η = 0.150, for systems consisting of HBPs with prolate, dual-shaped, and oblate geometries. We observed that increasing the distance between the walls led to the recovery of an isotropic bulk phase, while local particle organization near the walls remained stable. Due to their shape, oblate HBPs exhibit more efficient anchoring at wall surfaces compared to prolate shapes. The formation of nematic-like particle assemblies near the walls, confirmed by theoretical calculations based on density functional theory, significantly influenced local particle dynamics. This effect was particularly pronounced to the extent that a modest portion of cuboids near the walls tended to diffuse exclusively in planes parallel to the confinement, even more efficiently than observed in the bulk regions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Luca Tonti
- Department of Chemical Engineering, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom
| | - Fabián A García Daza
- Department of Physical, Chemical and Natural Systems, Pablo de Olavide University, 41013 Sevilla, Spain
| | - José Manuel Romero-Enrique
- Departamento de Física Atómica, Molecular y Nuclear, Área de Física Teórica, Universidad de Sevilla, Avenida de Reina Mercedes s/n, 41012 Sevilla, Spain
- Carlos I Institute of Theoretical and Computational Physics, Fuente Nueva s/n, 18071 Granada, Spain
| | - Alessandro Patti
- Department of Chemical Engineering, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom
- Carlos I Institute of Theoretical and Computational Physics, Fuente Nueva s/n, 18071 Granada, Spain
- Department of Applied Physics, University of Granada, Fuente Nueva s/n, 18071 Granada, Spain
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2
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Kober J, Scalerandi M, Gabriel D. Robust determination of relaxation times spectra of long-time multirelaxation processes. Phys Rev E 2023; 107:035302. [PMID: 37073054 DOI: 10.1103/physreve.107.035302] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/09/2022] [Accepted: 02/27/2023] [Indexed: 04/20/2023]
Abstract
Long-time relaxation processes occur in numerous physical systems. They are often regarded as multirelaxation processes, which are a superposition of exponential decays with a certain distribution of relaxation times. The relaxation times spectra often convey information about the underlying physics. Extracting the spectrum of relaxation times from experimental data is, however, difficult. This is partly due to the mathematical properties of the problem and partly due to experimental limitations. In this paper, we perform the inversion of time-series relaxation data into a relaxation spectrum using the singular value decomposition accompanied by the Akaike information criterion estimator. We show that this approach does not need any a priori information on the spectral shape and that it delivers a solution that consistently approximates the best one achievable for given experimental dataset. On the contrary, we show that the solution obtained imposing an optimal fit of experimental data is often far from reconstructing well the distribution of relaxation times.
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Affiliation(s)
- J Kober
- Institute of Thermomechanics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague 18200, Czech Republic
| | - M Scalerandi
- DISAT, Condensed Matter Physics and Complex Systems Institute, Politecnico di Torino 10129, Italy
| | - D Gabriel
- Institute of Thermomechanics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague 18200, Czech Republic
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Rodríguez-Rivas Á, Patti A, Cuetos A. Dynamics in field-induced biaxial nematic liquid crystals of board-like particles. J Mol Liq 2022. [DOI: 10.1016/j.molliq.2022.120371] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
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Rafael EM, Tonti L, Daza FAG, Patti A. Active microrheology of colloidal suspensions of hard cuboids. Phys Rev E 2022; 106:034612. [PMID: 36266794 DOI: 10.1103/physreve.106.034612] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/31/2022] [Accepted: 08/31/2022] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
By performing dynamic Monte Carlo simulations, we investigate the microrheology of isotropic suspensions of hard-core colloidal cuboids. In particular, we infer the local viscoelastic behavior of these fluids by studying the dynamics of a probe spherical particle that is incorporated in the host phase and is dragged by an external force. This technique, known as active microrheology, allows one to characterize the microscopic response of soft materials upon application of a constant force, whose intensity spans here three orders of magnitude. By tuning the geometry of cuboids from oblate to prolate as well as the system density, we observe different responses that are quantified by measuring the effective friction perceived by the probe particle. The resulting friction coefficient exhibits a linear regime at forces that are much weaker and larger than the thermal forces, whereas a nonlinear, force-thinning regime is observed at intermediate force intensities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Effran Mirzad Rafael
- Department of Chemical Engineering, The University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, United Kingdom
| | - Luca Tonti
- Department of Chemical Engineering, The University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, United Kingdom
| | - Fabián A García Daza
- Department of Chemical Engineering, The University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, United Kingdom
| | - Alessandro Patti
- Department of Chemical Engineering, The University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, United Kingdom
- Department of Applied Physics, University of Granada, Avenida Fuente Nueva s/n, 18071 Granada, Spain
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5
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Šlepavičius J, Avendaño C, Conchúir BÓ, Patti A. Structural relaxation dynamics of colloidal nanotrimers. Phys Rev E 2022; 106:014604. [PMID: 35974591 DOI: 10.1103/physreve.106.014604] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/13/2022] [Accepted: 06/29/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
By Molecular Dynamics simulation, we investigate the dynamics of isotropic fluids of colloidal nanotrimers whose interactions are described by varying the strength of attractive and repulsive terms of the Mie potential. To provide a consistent comparison between the systems described by different force fields, we determine the phase diagram and critical points of each system, characterize the morphology of high-density liquid phases at the same reduced temperature and density, and finally investigate their long-time relaxation dynamics. In particular, we detect an especially complex dynamics that reveals the existence of slow and fast nanotrimers and the resulting occurrence of non-Gaussianity, which develops at intermediate timescales. Deviations from Gaussianity are temporary and vanish within the timescales of the system's density fluctuations decay, when a Fickian-like diffusion regime is eventually observed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Justinas Šlepavičius
- Department of Chemical Engineering, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom
| | - Carlos Avendaño
- Department of Chemical Engineering, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom
| | - Breanndán Ó Conchúir
- Department of Chemical Engineering, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom
- IBM Research Europe, The Hartree Centre STFC Laboratory Sci-Tech Daresbury Warrington, Warrington WA4 4AD, United Kingdom
| | - Alessandro Patti
- Department of Chemical Engineering, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom
- Department of Applied Physics, University of Granada, Fuente Nueva s/n, 18071 Granada, Spain
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Varma VA, Malhotra I, Babu SB. Enhancement in the diffusivity of Brownian spheroids in the presence of spheres. Phys Rev E 2022; 106:014602. [PMID: 35974557 DOI: 10.1103/physreve.106.014602] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/08/2021] [Accepted: 06/13/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
In the present paper, we have extended the simulation technique Brownian cluster dynamics (BCD) to analyze the dynamics of the binary mixture of hard ellipsoids and spheres. The shape dependent diffusional properties have been incorporated into BCD using Perrin's factor and compared with analytical results of a one-component ellipsoidal system. We have investigated pathways to enhance the diffusivity of spheroids in the binary mixture by manipulating the phase behavior of the system through varying the fraction of spheres in the binary mixture. We show that at low volume fraction the spherical particles have a higher diffusion coefficient than the ellipsoids due to the higher friction coefficient. However, at a higher volume fraction, we show that the diffusion coefficient of the ellipsoids increases irrespective of the aspect ratio due to the anisotropic shape.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vikki Anand Varma
- Out of Equilibrium Group, Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi 110016, India
| | - Isha Malhotra
- Out of Equilibrium Group, Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi 110016, India
| | - Sujin B Babu
- Out of Equilibrium Group, Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi 110016, India
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Abstract
Elastic slow dynamics, consisting in a reversible softening of materials when an external strain is applied, was experimentally observed in polycrystalline metals and presents analogies with the same phenomenon more widely observed in consolidated granular media. Since the effect is extremely small in metals, precise experimental techniques are needed. Reliable measurement of relative velocity variations of the order of 10−7 is crucial to perform the analysis. In addition, the grain structure and the nature of grain boundaries in metals is very different from that in rocks or concrete. Therefore, linking relaxation elastic effects to the microstructure is needed to understand the physical origin of slow dynamics in metals. Here, interpreting the relaxation phenomenon as a multirelaxation process, we show that it is sensitive to the spatial scale at the microstructural level, up to the point of allowing the identification of the existence of features at different spatial scales, particularly distinguishing damage from microstructural inhomogeneities.
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Tonti L, García Daza FA, Patti A. Diffusion of globular macromolecules in liquid crystals of colloidal cuboids. J Mol Liq 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.molliq.2021.116640] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
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Colloidal and fumed particles in nematic liquid crystals: Self-assembly, confinement and implications on rheology. J Mol Liq 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.molliq.2021.116241] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
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García Daza FA, Puertas AM, Cuetos A, Patti A. Microrheology of colloidal suspensions via dynamic Monte Carlo simulations. J Colloid Interface Sci 2021; 605:182-192. [PMID: 34325340 DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.07.088] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/27/2021] [Revised: 07/14/2021] [Accepted: 07/16/2021] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
Understanding the rheology of colloidal suspensions is crucial in the formulation of a wide selection of industry-relevant products, such as paints, foods and inks. To characterise the viscoelastic behaviour of these soft materials, one can analyse the microscopic dynamics of colloidal tracers diffusing through the host fluid and generating local deformations and stresses. This technique, referred to as microrheology, links the bulk rheology of fluids to the microscopic dynamics at the particle scale. If tracers are subjected to external forces, rather than freely diffusing, it is called active microrheology. Motivated by the impact of microrheology in providing information on local structure in complex systems such as colloidal glasses, active matter or biological systems, we have extended the dynamic Monte Carlo (DMC) technique to investigate active microrheology in colloidal suspensions. The original DMC theoretical framework, able to accurately describe the Brownian dynamics of colloids at equilibrium, is here reconsidered and expanded to describe the effects of an external force pulling a tracer embedded in isotropic colloidal suspensions at different densities. To this end, we studied the dynamics of a spherical tracer dragged by a constant external force through a bath of spherical and rod-like particles of comparable size. We could extract valuable details on its effective friction coefficient, being constant at small and large values of the external force, but otherwise displaying a nonlinear behaviour that indicates the occurrence of a force-thinning regime. Our DMC simulation results are in excellent quantitative agreement with past Langevin dynamics simulations and theoretical works for the bath of spherical colloids. The bath of rod-like particles is studied in the isotropic phase, and displays an example where DMC is more convenient than Brownian or Langevin dynamics, in this case, in dealing with particle rotation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fabián A García Daza
- Department of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK.
| | - Antonio M Puertas
- Department of Chemistry and Physics, University of Almería, 04120 Almería, Spain
| | - Alejandro Cuetos
- Department of Physical, Chemical and Natural Systems, Pablo de Olavide University, 41013 Sevilla, Spain
| | - Alessandro Patti
- Department of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK.
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Chiappini M, Patti A, Dijkstra M. Helicoidal dynamics of biaxial curved rods in twist-bend nematic phases unveiled by unsupervised machine learning techniques. Phys Rev E 2020; 102:040601. [PMID: 33212681 DOI: 10.1103/physreve.102.040601] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/14/2020] [Accepted: 09/08/2020] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
Uniaxial rods in a nematic phase diffuse preferentially in the direction parallel to the nematic director n[over ̂]. The nematic director field n[over ̂](r) of a chiral twist-bend nematic (N_{TB}) phase of achiral banana-shaped particles, recently discovered experimentally, displays a heliconical twist of given handedness and periodicity. Using simulations, we investigate the long-time macroscopic diffusion in N_{TB} phases, and find that the predilection of curved rods to diffuse in the direction of the twisting n[over ̂](r) yields a fascinating chiral dynamics along helices, even though achiral curved rods display Brownian motion with a nontrivial rototranslational coupling. We devise a machine learning protocol to characterize the helicoidal particle trajectories, finding that their pitch and radius are determined by the pitch and conical angle of the N_{TB} phase thereby connecting its structural and dynamical properties.
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Affiliation(s)
- Massimiliano Chiappini
- Department of Physics, Soft Condensed Matter, Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science, Utrecht University, Princetonplein 1, Utrecht 3584 CC, The Netherlands
| | - Alessandro Patti
- Department of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom
| | - Marjolein Dijkstra
- Department of Physics, Soft Condensed Matter, Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science, Utrecht University, Princetonplein 1, Utrecht 3584 CC, The Netherlands
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García Daza FA, Cuetos A, Patti A. Dynamic Monte Carlo simulations of inhomogeneous colloidal suspensions. Phys Rev E 2020; 102:013302. [PMID: 32795071 DOI: 10.1103/physreve.102.013302] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/05/2020] [Accepted: 06/18/2020] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
The dynamic Monte Carlo (DMC) method is an established molecular simulation technique for the analysis of the dynamics in colloidal suspensions. An excellent alternative to Brownian dynamics or molecular dynamics simulation, DMC is applicable to systems of spherical and/or anisotropic particles and to equilibrium or out-of-equilibrium processes. In this work, we present a theoretical and methodological framework to extend DMC to the study of heterogeneous systems, where the presence of an interface between coexisting phases introduces an additional element of complexity in determining the dynamic properties. In particular, we simulate a Lennard-Jones fluid at the liquid-vapor equilibrium and determine the diffusion coefficients in the bulk of each phase and across the interface. To test the validity of our DMC results, we also perform Brownian Dynamics simulations and unveil an excellent quantitative agreement between the two simulation techniques.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fabián A García Daza
- Department of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom
| | - Alejandro Cuetos
- Department of Physical, Chemical and Natural Systems, Pablo de Olavide University, 41013 Sevilla, Spain
| | - Alessandro Patti
- Department of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom
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