Biological & Soft Matter Seminar: Theory for systems with spontaneous inhomogeneities on a mesoscopic length scale

Zoom: https://tau-ac-il.zoom.us/j/88904888353?pwd=dDIwaXRxSjlsVElkR0dXdTNPTGhnZz09

Abstarct:

In the talk, I'll briefly show examples of experimental systems with spontaneous inhomogeneities (clusters, networks, layers of particles). Next, the generic shape of competing interactions between spherical particles leading to self-assembly (the mermaid or SALR potential) will be presented. Self-assembled structures from simulation studies for the mermaid potential will be shown. 

In the second part of the talk I'll focus on:

• Origin of similarity between amphiphilic and colloidal self-assembly. I'll show similarity between the Landau-type functionals for amphiphilic and mermaid-potential systems. 

• Effects of fluctuations. I'll show simple examples of disordered systems with mesoscopic inhomogeneities and present heuristic arguments why the variance of the local density plays an important role for phase equilibria.

• Development of the density functional theory with the fluctuation contribution to the grand potential taken into account. I'll show how the variance of the local density enters the expressions for correlations and grand thermodynamic potential (pressure).

• Comparison between the theoretical and simulation results.