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Updated: Oct 28, 2025

Preparation of Janus Particles and Alternating Current Electrokinetic Measurements with a Rapidly Fabricated Indium Tin Oxide Electrode Array
Published on: June 23, 2017
Reverse order-disorder transition of Janus particles confined in two dimensions
Yihao Liang1,2, Boran Ma2, Monica Olvera de la Cruz1,2
1Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA.
Abstract:
Janus particles with different patch sizes, confined to two dimensions, generate a series of patterns of interest to the field of nanoscience. Here we observe reverse melting, where for some densities the system melts under cooling. For a broad range of hydrophobic patch sizes (60^{∘}<θ_{0}<90^{∘}), a reentrant transition from solid to liquid and then to an ordered phase emerges as temperature (T) decreases due to the formation of rhombus chains at low T. This reentrant phase has pseudo long-range orientational order but short-range translational order, similar to a hexatic phase. Our work provides guidelines to study the melting and assembly of Janus particles in two dimensions, as well as mechanisms to generate phases with specific symmetry.
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