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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik
DY 8: Poster I: Glasses and Glass Transition (joint session DY/DF/CPP)
DY 8.13: Poster
Monday, March 11, 2013, 17:30–19:30, Poster C
Theoretical methods to analyse scattering patterns in the systems of self-assembling anisotropic particles — •Sofia Kantorovich1,2, Elena Pyanzina1, Cristiano De Michele2, and Francesco Sciortino2 — 1Ural Federal University, Lenin av. 51, 620000, Ekaterinburg, Russia — 2Sapienza, University of Rome, Piazza A. Moro 5, 00185, Rome, Italy
Self-assembly is a phenomena which can be observed on the broad range of scales: starting from simple molecules to colloidal particles. This effect of spontaneous equilibrium formation of reversible aggregates might serve as a key to the synthesis of new smart materials, once self-assembly mechanisms are well understood. The aggregates formed in the systems might lead to significant changes in macroscopic responses of the systems, thus, becoming very important in soft matter and biophysics. One of the examples of self-assembling building blocks is short blunt-ended DNA duplexes which form chains. At low densities these chains form an isotropic phase, whereas, at high densities, these particular DNA solutions are known to order into the nematic liquid crystal phases. Here, we put forward a theoretical approach, which suggests how to predict the average chain length and the stacking free energy, based on the experimental scattering patterns. We show that the proposed method is rather general and might be used for any self-assembling anisotropic particles, as long as the chain-size distribution is exponential.