Electrostatic stability of a large collection of charged anisotropic nanoparticles: a monte carlo study exploiting a hierarchical approach.
We have performed Monte Carlo simulations of the self-organization of large collections of charged disks of various electric charges to probe the influence of electrostatic coupling on the structure and the mechanical stability of aqueous dispersions of charged anisotropic nanoparticles in the presence of salt. A hierarchical approach of the long-range Coulombic potential was used to perform such Monte Carlo simulations of a large number of charged species. By analyzing the influence of the net electric charge of the disks on their self-organization, we detected a negative contribution to the mean force potential resulting from their electrostatic coupling. In addition, it has been shown that the same electrostatic coupling restricts the spatial extend of locally ordered microdomains within dilute dispersions of charged anisotropic colloids.
Delville
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CRMD, CNRS, 1B rue de la Férollerie, 45071 Orléans Cedex 02, France. delville@cnrs-orleans.fr