English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

We report a computer simulation study of a model gel-former obtained bymodifying the three-body interactions of the Stillinger-Weber potential forsilicon. This modification reduces the average coordination number andconsequently shifts the liquid-gas phase coexistence curve to low densities,thus facilitating the formation of gels without phase separation. At lowtemperatures and densities, the structure of the system is characterized by thepresence of long linear chains interconnected by a small number of threecoordinated junctions at random locations. At small wave-vectors the staticstructure factor shows a non-monotonic dependence on temperature, a behaviorwhich is due to the competition between the percolation transition of theparticles and the stiffening of the formed chains. We compare in detail therelaxation dynamics of the system as obtained from molecular dynamics with theone obtained from Monte Carlo dynamics. We find that the bond correlationfunction displays stretched exponential behavior at moderately low temperaturesand densities, but exponential relaxation at low temperatures. The bondlifetime shows an Arrhenius behavior, independent of the microscopic dynamics.For the molecular dynamics at low temperatures, the mean squared displacementand the (coherent and incoherent) intermediate scattering function display atintermediate times a dynamics with ballistic character and we show that thisleads to compressed exponential relaxation. For the Monte Carlo dynamics wefind always an exponential or stretched exponential relaxation. Thus weconclude that the compressed exponential relaxation observed in experiments isdue to the out-of-equilibrium dynamics.

Computer Simulation Study of the Phase Behavior and Structural Relaxation in a Gel-Former Modeled by Three Body Interactions