| HOME >> BIOLOGY >> TECHNOLOGY |
ny number of sides.
Left to their own devices, drifting particles find the arrangements with the highest entropy. That arrangement matches the idea that entropy is a disorder if the particles have enough space: they disperse, pointed in random directions. But crowded tightly, the particles began forming crystal structures like atoms doeven though they couldn't make bonds. These ordered crystals had to be the high-entropy arrangements, too.
Glotzer explains that this isn't really disorder creating orderentropy needs its image updated. Instead, she describes it as a measure of possibilities. If you could turn off gravity and empty a bag full of dice into a jar, the floating dice would point every which way. However, if you keep adding dice, eventually space becomes so limited that the dice have more options to align face-to-face. The same thing happens to the nanoparticles, which are so small that they feel entropy's influence more strongly than gravity's.
"It's all about options. In this case, ordered arrangements produce the most possibilities, the most options. It's counterintuitive, to be sure," Glotzer said.
The simulation results showed that nearly 70 percent of the shapes tested produced crystal-like structures under entropy alone. But the shocker was how complicated some of these structures were, with up to 52 particles involved in the pattern that repeated throughout the crystal.
"That's an extraordinarily complex crystal structure even for atoms to form, let alone particles that can't chemically bond," Glotzer said.
The particle shapes produced three crystal types: regular crystals like salt, liquid crystals as found in some flat-screen TVs and plastic crystals in which particles can spin in place. By analyzing the shape of the particle and how groups of them behave before they crystallize, Damasceno said that it is possible to predict which type of crystal the particles would make.
"The geomet
'/>"/>
| Contact: Nicole Casal Moore ncmoore@umich.edu 734-647-7087 University of Michigan Source:Eurekalert |
Related biology technology :
1. En route to a quantum computer
2. 3-dimensional view of 1-dimensional nanostructures
| Copyright © 2003-2012 Bio-Medicine. All rights reserved. ABOUT | CONTACT US | DISCLAIMER | PRIVACY POLICY | TERMS AND CONDITIONS |  |