Computing phase diagrams for a quasicrystal-forming patchy-particle system

Abstract

We introduce an approach to computing the free energy of quasicrystals, which we use to calculate phase diagrams for systems of two-dimensional patchy particles with five regularly arranged patches that have previously been shown to form dodecagonal quasicrystals. We find that the quasicrystal is a thermodynamically stable phase for a wide range of conditions and remains a robust feature of the system as the potential's parameters are varied. We also demonstrate that the quasicrystal is entropically stabilised over its crystalline approximants.