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Stripe phases from isotropic repulsive interactions

Nature Materials volume 2, pages 97–100 (2003)Cite this article

Abstract

One of the most striking signatures of self-organization is spontaneous pattern formation1,2. Among the morphologies observed, stripes are intrinsically fascinating and have potential for technological applications including nanolithography and nanoelectricity. Examples of materials featuring stripe patterns include Langmuir monolayers3, magnetic films4, lipid monolayers5, liquid crystals6 and polymer films7. Stripe formation is generally attributed to the competition between short-range attractive forces and long-range repulsion arising from dipole interactions8,9. Here we show that stripe phases may result from a different mechanism based on a purely repulsive isotropic short-range pair potential with two characteristic length scales. We consider a two-dimensional (2D) assembly of particles consisting of a hard core surrounded by a soft corona and find that at densities where the hard-and-soft core radii compete with each other, decreasing the temperature induces a transition from a disordered state to an orientationally ordered phase characterized by stripe patterns.

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Figure 1: Description of the model.
Figure 2: Structural properties at temperature T = 0.1 (NVT simulation).
Figure 3: Spatial configuration immediately above and below the transition to the stripe phase.
Figure 4: Thermodynamic properties at density ρ = 0.291 (NVT simulation).
Figure 5: Thermodynamic properties at pressure P = 0.75 (NPT simulation).

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Acknowledgements

We thank P. Ballone, E. Bruno, C. Caccamo, P. V. Giaquinta, F. Mallamace and, in particular, A. Coniglio for useful discussions. G.M. wishes to thank H. N. W. Lekkerkerker for suggestions and H. E. Stanley for directing his attention to the phase behaviour of shouldered potentials.

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  1. Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Messina and Istituto Nazionale di Fisica della Materia, Messina, 98166, Italy

    Gianpietro Malescio & Giuseppe Pellicane

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  1. Gianpietro Malescio
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Correspondence to Gianpietro Malescio.

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Malescio, G., Pellicane, G. Stripe phases from isotropic repulsive interactions. Nature Mater 2, 97–100 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat820

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