Design of patchy particles using quaternary self-assembled monolayers.

Binary and ternary self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) adsorbed on gold nanoparticles (NPs) have been previously studied for their propensity to form novel and unexpected patterns. The patterns found were shown to arise from a competition between immiscibilty of unlike surfactants and entropic gains due to length or other architectural differences between them. We investigate patterns self-assembled from quaternary monolayers on spherical nanoparticles. We perform simulations to study the effect of NP radius, degree of immiscibility between surfactants, length differences, and stoichiometry of the SAM on the formation of patterns. We report patterns analogous to binary and ternary cases, as well as some novel patterns specific to quaternary SAMs.