Structure, thermodynamic properties, and phase diagrams of few colloids confined in a spherical pore

IVÁN PAGANINI; CLAUDIO PASTORINO; IGNACIO URRUTIA

JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL PHYSICS

AMER INST PHYSICS

Lugar: New York; Año: 2015

0021-9606

We study a system of few colloids confined in a small spherical cavity with event driven molecular dynamics simulations in the canonical ensemble. The colloidal particles interact through a short range square-well potential, that takes into account the basic elements of attraction and excluded-volume repulsion of the interaction among colloids. We analyze the structural and thermodynamic properties of this few-body confined system in the framework of inhomogeneous fluids theory. Pair correlation function and density profile are used to determine the structure and the spatial characteristics of the system. Pressure on the walls, internal energy and surface quantities such as surface tension and adsorption are also analyzed for a wide range of densities and temperatures. We havecharacterized systems from 2 to 6 confined particles, identifying distinctive qualitative behavior over the thermodynamic plane T-rho, in a few-particle equivalence to phase diagrams of macroscopic systems. Applying the extended law of corresponding states the square well interaction is mapped to the Asakura-Oosawa model for colloid-polymer mixtures. We link explicitly the temperature in the confined square-well fluid to the equivalent packing fraction of polymers in the Asakura-Oosawa model. Using this approach we study the confined system of few colloids in a colloid-polymer mixture.