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Random and ordered phases of off-lattice rhombus tiles

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DOIResolve DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.035702
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FormatText, Article
Abstract
We study the covering of the plane by nonoverlapping rhombus tiles, a problem well studied only in the limiting case of dimer coverings of regular lattices. We go beyond this limit by allowing tiles to take any position and orientation on the plane, to be of irregular shape, and to possess different types of attractive interactions. Using extensive numerical simulations, we show that at large tile densities there is a phase transition from a fluid of rhombus tiles to a solid packing with broken rotational symmetry. We observe self-assembly of broken-symmetry phases, even at low densities, in the presence of attractive tile-tile interactions. Depending on the tile shape and interactions, the solid phase can be random, possessing critical orientational fluctuations, or crystalline. Our results suggest strategies for controlling tiling order in experiments involving “molecular rhombi.”
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PublisherAmerican Physical Society
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  • Physical Review Letters 108, no. 3.
LanguageEnglish
Peer reviewedYes
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NPARC number23003162
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Record identifier1942f327-a9bc-4cea-b670-d6b597fb55aa
Record created2018-05-03
Record modified2020-05-30
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