Self-assembly of trimer colloids: effect of shape and interaction range

Abstract

Trimers with one attractive bead and two repulsive beads, similar to recently synthesized trimer patchy colloids, were simulated with flat-histogram Monte Carlo methods to obtain the stable self-assembled structures for different shapes and interaction potentials. Extended corresponding states principle was successfully applied to self-assembling systems in order to approximately collapse the results for models with the same shape, but different interaction range. This helps us directly compare simulation results with previous experiment, and good agreement was found between the two. In addition, a variety of self-assembled structures were observed by varying the trimer geometry, including spherical clusters, elongated clusters, monolayers, and spherical shells. In conclusion, our results help to compare simulations and experiments, via extended corresponding states, and we predict the formation of self-assembled structures for trimer shapes that have not been experimentally synthesized.