Helical packings and phase transformations of soft spheres in cylinders

M. A. Lohr, A. M. Alsayed, B. G. Chen, Z. Zhang, R. D. Kamien, A. G. Yodh

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

52 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The phase behavior of helical packings of thermoresponsive microspheres inside glass capillaries is studied as a function of the volume fraction. Stable packings with long-range orientational order appear to evolve abruptly to disordered states as the particle volume fraction is reduced, consistent with recent hard-sphere simulations. We quantify this transition using correlations and susceptibilities of the orientational order parameter ψ6. The emergence of coexisting metastable packings, as well as coexisting ordered and disordered states, is also observed. These findings support the notion of phase-transition-like behavior in quasi-one-dimensional systems.

Original languageEnglish
Article number040401
JournalPhysical Review E - Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics
Volume81
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 13 Apr 2010
Externally publishedYes

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