Issue 47, 2014

“Crystal-clear” liquid–liquid transition in a tetrahedral fluid

Abstract

For a model known to exhibit liquid–liquid transitions, we examine how varying the bond orientational flexibility affects the stability of the liquid–liquid transition relative to that of the crystal phases. For very rigidly oriented bonds, the crystal is favored over all amorphous phase transitions. We find that increasing the bond flexibility decreases both the critical temperature Tc for liquid–liquid phase separation and the melting temperature Tm. The effect of increasing flexibility is much stronger for melting, so that the distance between Tc and Tm progressively reduces and inverts sign. Under these conditions, a “naked” liquid–liquid critical point bulges out in the liquid phase and becomes accessible, without the possibility of crystallization. These results confirm that a crystal-clear, liquid–liquid transition can occur as a genuine, thermodynamically stable phenomenon for tetrahedral coordinated particles with flexible bond orientation, but that such a transition is hidden by crystallization when bonds are highly directional.

Graphical abstract: “Crystal-clear” liquid–liquid transition in a tetrahedral fluid

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
18 Aug 2014
Accepted
23 Sep 2014
First published
23 Sep 2014

Soft Matter, 2014,10, 9413-9422

Author version available

“Crystal-clear” liquid–liquid transition in a tetrahedral fluid

F. W. Starr and F. Sciortino, Soft Matter, 2014, 10, 9413 DOI: 10.1039/C4SM01835D

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements