Department of Physics, Sapienza, Università di Roma, Piazzale Aldo Moro 2, I-00185, Roma, Italy.
Sci Rep. 2013;3:2451. doi: 10.1038/srep02451.
We exploit the concept of competing interactions to design a binary mixture of patchy particles that forms a reversible gel upon heating. Our molecular dynamics computer simulation of such a system shows that with increasing temperature the relaxation dynamics slows down by more than four orders of magnitude and then speeds up again. The system is thus a fluid both at high and at low temperatures and a solid-like disordered open network structure at intermediate temperature. We further discuss the feasibility of realizing a real material with this reversible behavior.
我们利用竞争相互作用的概念设计了一种嵌段粒子的二元混合物,该混合物在加热时形成可逆凝胶。我们对这样一个系统的分子动力学计算机模拟表明,随着温度的升高,弛豫动力学的速度减慢了四个数量级以上,然后又再次加快。因此,该系统在高温和低温下都是流体,而在中间温度下则是类似固体的无序开放网络结构。我们进一步讨论了实现具有这种可逆行为的实际材料的可行性。