Assembly of ellipsoid-shaped colloids by emulsion droplet evaporation

Abstract

In this paper, we study the assembly of ellipsoid colloidal particles to form cluster structures using Monte Carlo Metropolis simulations. The self-assembly is accomplished through the evaporation of emulsion droplets. We find that the majority of cluster structures have a well-defined configuration. It is
worth noting that cluster sizes smaller than 8 possess structures that are exactly the same as the microscopic structure of the second order of mass distribution, as well as the optimization problems in some other forms of interaction. However, cluster structures larger than 8 particles do not satisfy the second minimum condition. These results agree with the perception of cluster structure in the assembly of dumbbell-shaped colloid particles. In addition, based on the analysis of link numbers and visual comparison, we observe that the cluster structure obtained in this study is different from the structures in
several previous studies in the literature.