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Updated: Sep 26, 2025

Combining Microfluidics and Microrheology to Determine Rheological Properties of Soft Matter during Repeated Phase Transitions
Published on: April 19, 2018
Reentrant transitions in a mixture of small and big particles interacting via soft repulsive potential
Itay Azizi1, Alexander Y Grosberg2, Yitzhak Rabin1
1Department of Physics and Institute of Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel.
Abstract:
We report an observation of a temperature-controlled reentrant transition in simulations of mixtures of small and big particles interacting via a soft repulsive potential in two dimensions. As temperature increases, the system passes from a fluid mixture, to a crystal of big particles in a fluid of small particles, and back to a fluid mixture. Solidification is driven by entropy gain of small particles which overcomes the free-energy cost of confining big ones. Melting results from enhanced interpenetration of particles at high temperature which reduces the entropic forces that stabilize the crystal.
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