Ising and Dissipative Particle Dynamics Models of Network Connections Between Engineered Nanoparticles

Complex engineered nanoparticle (ENP) networks are emergent materials that have a variety of applications, such as drug delivery, flexible electronics, and computing devices. Uncovering the fundamental physics of network connections between ENPs is critical to developing new networked materials. In this work, we use an Ising model to resolve the network connections in regular arrays of ENPs by Monte-Carlo (MC) simulations and mean-field theory (MFT). We compare the theoretical predictions from the Ising model with dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) simulation results. We report the network connections inside four different types of ENP regular arrays, <i>viz.</i> 2D square, 2D hexagonal, 3D cubic and 3D close-packed hexagonal packings. We found that MFT and MC simulations are in good agreement in describing the thermodynamics of the network connections. We also found that the DPD simulations and Ising model MC simulations agree in predicting the resulting network connections at varying temperatures under a range of external E-field strengths.