Close-packed structures and phase diagram of soft spheres in cylindrical pores

It is shown for a model system consisting of spherical particles confined in cylindrical pores that the first ten close-packed phases are in one-to-one correspondence with the first ten ways of folding a triangular lattice, each being characterized by a roll-up vector like the single-walled carbon nanotube. Phase diagrams in pressure-diameter and temperature-diameter planes are obtained by inherent-structure calculation and molecular dynamics simulation. The phase boundaries dividing two adjacent phases are infinitely sharp in the low-temperature limit but are blurred as temperature is increased. Existence of such phase boundaries explains rich, diameter-sensitive phase behavior unique for cylindrically confined systems. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.