Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jan 9, 2026
09:25
Fabricating van der Waals Heterostructures with Precise Rotational Alignment
Published on: July 5, 2019
10.0K
Competing structures in a minimal double-well-potential model of condensed matter
Julyan H E Cartwright1,2, Bruno Escribano3, Sándalo Roldán-Vargas4
1Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra, IACT-CSIC, Armilla 18100, Granada, Spain.
Chaos (Woodbury, N.Y.)
|December 3, 2025
Summary
A minimal model reveals complex amorphous structures without temperature. This athermal system with specific particle interactions generates medium-range order, heterogeneity, and polycrystallinity in materials like water and silicon.
Area of Science:
- Materials Science
- Condensed Matter Physics
- Computational Chemistry
Background:
- Amorphous substances exhibit complex microscopic structures, including medium/long-range order and spatial heterogeneity.
- Existing models often require complex particle interactions and temperature control to capture these features.
Purpose of the Study:
- To demonstrate that complex structural patterns in amorphous materials can emerge from a minimal model.
- To explore an athermal approach for simulating amorphous structures.
Main Methods:
- Development of a minimal, athermal, two-dimensional model.
- Particles interact via an isotropic double-well potential with excluded volume and a maximum coordination number.
Main Results:
- The model successfully reproduces complex structural features like medium-range order, spatial heterogeneity, and local polycrystallinity.
- These features emerge without the need for temperature as a control parameter.
Conclusions:
- A simple geometrical model with specific particle interactions can generate rich structural diversity in amorphous systems.
- The findings are applicable to various real-world materials, including water, silicon, and other amorphous substances.
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