(553b) Monte Carlo Simulation of Cylinders with Short-Range Attractions

Cylindrical and rod-like particles with short range attractions have promising applications in the design of nanocomposite materials and colloidal suspensions with desired mechanical and rheological properties. The recent advances in experimental synthesis of monodisperse collections of such particles allows for a fundamental study of the dynamical arrest transition as a function of temperature, packing fraction and aspect ratio. In this work, we simulate cylindrical particles with a systematic investigation over these wide range of conditions. The attraction between cylinders increases with the locally-accessible surface area and with an attraction range on the order of a few percent of the diameter, leading to highly anisotropic interactions. We compare our simulations against small angle scattering experiments, which are in good agreement. We then investigate the orientational ordering, clustering and percolation to aid in the interpretation of the experimental results for dynamical arrest.

1. Hatch, Mahynski, Murphy, Blanco, Shen, AIP Advances, 8, 095210 (2018).