Journal Article

How to simulate patchy particles

Rovigatti, Lorenzo, Romano, Flavio, Russo, John

2018

Overview

. Patchy particles is the name given to a large class of systems of mesoscopic particles characterized by a repulsive core and a discrete number of short-range and highly directional interaction sites. Numerical simulations have contributed significantly to our understanding of the behaviour of patchy particles, but, although simple in principle, advanced simulation techniques are often required to sample the low temperatures and long time-scales associated with their self-assembly behaviour. In this work we review the most popular simulation techniques that have been used to study patchy particles, with a special focus on Monte Carlo methods. We cover many of the tools required to simulate patchy systems, from interaction potentials to biased moves, cluster moves, and free-energy methods. The review is complemented by an educationally oriented Monte Carlo computer code that implements all the techniques described in the text to simulate a well-known tetrahedral patchy particle model. Graphical abstract

• Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Advances in Computational Methods for Soft Matter Systems / Biological and Medical Physics / Biophysics / Colloquium / Complex Fluids and Microfluidics / Complex Systems / Computer simulation / Condensed matter physics / Energy methods / Mathematical models / Monte Carlo simulation / Nanotechnology / Physics / Physics and Astronomy / Polymer Sciences / Self-assembly / Simulation / Soft and Granular Matter / Software / Surfaces and Interfaces / Teaching methods / Thin Films