Glassy dynamics of Convex Polyhedra

Abstract

Self-assembly of polyhedral-shaped particles have attracted huge interest with the advent of new synthesis methods to realize these faceted particles in the lab. Recent studies have shown that polyhedral particles exhibit rich phase behavior by excluded volume interactions alone. Some of these particles are alleged to show a transition to a glass phase by quenching the liquid sufficiently fast beyond the glass transition (supercooling) such that the formation of structures with long-range order is suppressed. Despite the recent progress, no study has been made on the glass formation of polyhedral-shaped particles. Here we study the glassy behavior of polyhedral particles using advanced Monte Carlo methods. In the ?first part of this thesis the formation of glass by mono-disperse polyhedral particles, namely octahedra, tetrahedra and triangular cupola are discussed. At the end, the fragility of these particles is calculated and compared with that of other systems. In the second part of this thesis we performed preliminary calculations on binary mixtures of polyhedral particles. Possible candidate crystal structures are studied using the floppy box Monte Carlo method.