Phase behavior of ionic microgels
We employ effective interaction potentials between spherical polyelectrolyte microgels in order to investigate theoretically the structure, thermodynamics, and phase behavior of ionic microgel solutions. Combining a genetic algorithm with accurate free energy calculations we are able to perform an u...
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| Published in: | Physical review letters Vol. 92; no. 6; p. 068301 |
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
United States
13-02-2004
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| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | We employ effective interaction potentials between spherical polyelectrolyte microgels in order to investigate theoretically the structure, thermodynamics, and phase behavior of ionic microgel solutions. Combining a genetic algorithm with accurate free energy calculations we are able to perform an unrestricted search of candidate crystal structures. Hexagonal, body-centered orthogonal, and trigonal crystals are found to be stable at high concentrations and charges of the microgels, accompanied by reentrant melting behavior and fluid-fcc-bcc transitions below the overlap concentration. |
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| Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
| ISSN: | 0031-9007 1079-7114 |
| DOI: | 10.1103/PhysRevLett.92.068301 |