The hard disk model is generally applied to study melting in two dimensional colloidal solids, which for idealized 2D systems proceeds through a solid to hexatic - hexatic to fluid process, but impurities perturb the hexatic phase for real systems. The paper reports Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics simulations of a 2D system of polydisperse hard disks, finding that increasing polydispersity decreases stability of hexatic phase, and that even for polydisperse systems there are re-entrant transitions at high density, which is not observed for 3D systems.
- Pablo Sampedro Ruiz
- Qun-li Lei
- Ran Ni