Hard-core/soft shell (HCSS) particles have been shown to self-assemble into a remarkably rich variety of structures under compression due to the simple interplay between the hard-core and soft-shoulder length scales in their interactions. Most studies in this area model the soft shell interaction as a square shoulder potential. Although appealing from a theoretical point of view, the potential is physically unrealistic because there is no repulsive force in the soft shell regime, unlike in experimental HCSS systems. To make the model more realistic, here we consider HCSS particles with a range of soft shell potential profiles beyond the standard square shoulder form and study the model using both minimum energy calculations and Monte Carlo simulations. We find that by tuning density and the soft shell profile, HCSS particles in the thin shell regime (i.e., shell to core ratio ) can form a large range of structures, including hexagons, chains, squares, rhomboids and two distinct zig-zag structures. Furthermore, by tuning the density and r₁/r₀, we find that HCSS particles with experimentally realistic linear ramp soft shoulder repulsions can form honeycombs and quasicrystals with 10-fold and 12-fold symmetry. Our study therefore suggests the exciting possibility of fabricating these exotic 2D structures experimentally through colloidal self-assembly.

中文翻译：

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具有可变软壳轮廓的二维硬核/软壳系统中的图案形成

硬核/软壳（HCSS）粒子已显示出在压缩状态下会自组装成非常丰富的各种结构，这是由于硬核和软肩长度尺度之间的相互作用很简单。该领域的大多数研究将软壳相互作用建模为方肩势。尽管从理论上讲吸引人，但这种潜力在物理上是不现实的，因为与实验性HCSS系统不同，软壳层中没有排斥力。为了使模型更逼真，在这里我们考虑具有超出标准方肩形式的一系列软壳势分布的HCSS粒子，并使用最小能量计算和蒙特卡洛模拟研究模型。我们发现，通过调整密度和软壳轮廓，即壳对核的比率）可以形成各种结构，包括六边形，链状，正方形，菱形和两个不同的之字形结构。此外，通过调整密度和r ₁ / r ₀，我们发现具有实验上现实的线性斜面软肩部斥力的HCSS粒子可以形成10倍和12倍对称的蜂窝和准晶体。因此，我们的研究表明通过胶体自组装实验性地制造这些奇异的2D结构的令人兴奋的可能性。