Self-assembled soft alloy with Frank-Kasper phases beyond metals

摘要

Soft building blocks, such as micelles, cells or soap bubbles, tend to adopt near-spherical geometry when densely packed together. As a result, their packing structures do not extend beyond those discovered in metallic glasses, quasicrystals and crystals. Here we report the emergence of two Frank-Kasper phases from the self-assembly of five-fold symmetric molecular pentagons. The mu phase, an important intermediate in superalloys, is indexed in soft matter, whereas the phi phase exhibits a structure distinct from known Frank-Kasper phases in metallic systems. We find a broad size and shape distribution of self-assembled mesoatoms formed by molecular pentagons while approaching equilibrium that contribute to the unique packing structures. This work provides insight into the manipulation of soft building blocks that deviate from the typical spherical geometry and opens avenues for the fabrication of 'soft alloy' structures that were previously unattainable in metal alloys. @@@ Soft building blocks tend to be near spherical, limiting their packing structures to those found in metallic systems. Here the authors report the spontaneous generation of highly deformed mesoatoms using molecular pentagons and observe Frank-Kasper phases not found in metal alloys.

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