Shape-induced chiral ordering in two-dimensional packing of snowmanlike dimeric particles

摘要

Understanding the distinctive phase behaviors in random packing due to particle shapes is an important issuenin condensed matter physics. In this paper, we investigate the random packing structure of two-dimensional (2D)nsnowmen via wax-snowman packing experiments and Brownian dynamics simulations. Both experiments andnsimulations reveal that neighboring snowmen have a strong short-range orientational correlation and consequentlynlocally form particular conformations. Achiral conformation is dominant for high area fractions near the jammingncondition (ϕ > 0.8), and the proportion of the chiral conformation increases with γ . We also found that thenattractive interaction does not have a significant impact on the results. The geometry of chirally ordered snowmenncauses a mismatch with 2D crystalline symmetries and thus inhibits the development of long-range spatial order,ndespite the strong orientational correlation between neighbors.