Binary complex colloidal crystals: Role of substitutional disorder and stacking faults

01/07/2025 to 30/06/2028

Crystals formed by two different species of particles show – as a consequence of the large number of variations of system parameters - an incredibly rich plethora of ordered structures, each of them being characterized by different physical properties. This holds in particular for crystals formed by soft matter particles (such as
colloids) as the properties of each of the two species can be tuned in a seemingly unlimited manner via suitable synthesis processes. Thus theoretical tools that allow in a predictive manner to explore the properties of the potentially emerging crystals are urgently required both from the academic as well as from the technological point of view. The focus of this project is laid on the evaluation of elastic, thermodynamic, and transport properties of such (binary colloidal) crystals, whose properties are, similar as in the related one component systems, distinctively influenced by the inevitable crystalline defects.
In the project at hand we will base our cooperation between U Tübingen, U Konstanz and TU Wien in a well-proven manner on three complementary approaches, namely density functional theory, projection operator formalism, and molecular dynamics simulation.