title: Adsorbed films of three-patch colloids: continuous and discontinuous transitions between thick and thin films.
abstract: We investigate numerically the role of spatial arrangement of the patches on the irreversible adsorption of patchy colloids on a substrate. We consider spherical three-patch colloids and study the dependence of the kinetics on the opening angle between patches. We show that growth is suppressed below and above minimum and maximum opening angles, revealing two absorbing phase transitions between thick and thin film regimes. While the transition at the minimum angle is continuous, in the directed percolation class, that at the maximum angle is clearly discontinuous. For intermediate values of the opening angle, a rough colloidal network in the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang universality class grows indefinitely. The nature of the transitions was analyzed in detail by considering bond flexibility, defined as the dispersion of the angle between the bond and the center of the patch. For the range of flexibilities considered we always observe two phase transitions. However, the range of opening angles where growth is sustained increases with flexibility. At a tricritical flexibility, the discontinuous transition becomes continuous. The practical implications of our findings and the relation to other nonequilibrium transitions are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Física, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, P-1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal and Centro de Física Teórica e Computacional, Universidade de Lisboa, Avenida Professor Gama Pinto 2, P-1649-003 Lisboa, Portugal.
authors.forename: C S
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Dias
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Física, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, P-1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal and Centro de Física Teórica e Computacional, Universidade de Lisboa, Avenida Professor Gama Pinto 2, P-1649-003 Lisboa, Portugal.
authors.forename: N A M
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Araújo
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Física, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, P-1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal and Centro de Física Teórica e Computacional, Universidade de Lisboa, Avenida Professor Gama Pinto 2, P-1649-003 Lisboa, Portugal.
authors.forename: M M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Telo da Gama
mesh_terms: D000327:Adsorption; D003102:Colloids; D008962:Models, Theoretical
chemical_list: D003102:Colloids