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Coarsening modes of clusters of aggregating particles

Andrey Pototsky1, Uwe Thiele2,3, and Andrew J. Archer2

  • 1Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Victoria, 3122, Australia
  • 2Department of Mathematical Science, Loughborough University, Loughborough LE11 3TU, United Kingdom
  • 3Institut für Theoretische Physik, Westfälische Wilhelms–Universität Münster, Wilhelm Klemm Strasse 9, D-48149 Münster, Germany

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Phys. Rev. E 89, 032144 – Published 31 March, 2014

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.89.032144

Abstract

There are two modes by which clusters of aggregating particles can coalesce: The clusters can merge either (i) by the Ostwald ripening process, in which particles diffuse from one cluster to the other while the cluster centers remain stationary, or (ii) by means of a cluster translation mode, in which the clusters move toward each other and join. To understand in detail the interplay between these different modes, we study a model system of hard particles with an additional attraction between them. The particles diffuse along narrow channels with smooth or periodically corrugated walls, so that the system may be treated as one-dimensional. When the attraction between the particles is strong enough, they aggregate to form clusters. The channel potential influences whether clusters can move easily or not through the system and can prevent cluster motion. We use dynamical density functional theory to study the dynamics of the aggregation process, focusing in particular on the coalescence of two equal-sized clusters. As long as the particle hard-core diameter is nonzero, we find that the coalescence process can be halted by a sufficiently strong corrugation potential. The period of the potential determines the size of the final stable clusters. For the case of smooth channel walls, we demonstrate that there is a crossover in the dominance of the two different coarsening modes, which depends on the strength of the attraction between particles, the cluster sizes, and the separation distance between clusters.

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Phys. Rev. E 89, 032144– Published 31 March, 2014
  • Received 27 January 2014

©2014 American Physical Society

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