Interfacial Chiral Selection by Bulk Species

Chiral selection by interfacial shearing of self-assembled achiral molecules.

We report a novel phenomenon of chiral selection in self-assembled condensates of achiral amphiphiles. The handedness of chiral textures, reproducing the collective rotational component of the molecular orientation inside submillimeter circular domains, is correlated with the sign of a vortical stirring in the aqueous subphase. We propose an explanation based on the distinctive kinetics of topo...

Bulk dynamics for interfacial growth models

We study the influence of the bulk dynamics of a growing cluster of particles on the properties of its interface. First, we define a general bulk growth model by means of a continuum Master equation for the evolution of the bulk density field. This general model just considers an arbitrary addition of particles (though it can be easily generalized to consider subtraction) with no other physical...

Bulk and interfacial properties of quadrupolar fluids

Interfacial Energies of Systems of Chiral Molecules

We consider a simple model for the assembly of chiral molecules in two dimensions driven by maximization of the contact area. We derive a macroscopic model described by a parameter taking nine possible values corresponding to the possible minimal microscopic patterns and modulated phases of the chiral molecules. We describe the overall behaviour by means of an interaction energy of perimeter ty...

Model colloidal fluid with competing interactions: bulk and interfacial properties.

Using a simple mean field density functional theory (DFT), the authors investigate the structure and phase behavior of a model colloidal fluid composed of particles interacting via a pair potential which has a hard core of diameter sigma, is attractive Yukawa at intermediate separations, and is repulsive Yukawa at large separations. The authors analyze the form of the asymptotic decay of the bu...