Understanding tetrahedral liquids through patchy colloids

We investigate the structural properties of a simple model for tetrahedral patchy colloids in which the patch width and the patch range can be tuned independently. For wide bond angles, a fully bonded network can be generated by standard Monte Carlo or molecular dynamics simulations of the model, providing a good method for generating defect-free random tetrahedral networks. This offers the possibility of focusing on the role of the patch angular width on the structure of the fully bonded network. The analysis of the fully bonded configurations as a function of the bonding angle shows how the bonding angle controls the system compressibility, the strength of the pre-peak in the structure factor, and ring size distribution. Comparison with models of liquid water and silica allows us to find the best mapping between these continuous potentials and the colloidal one. Building on previous studies focused on the connection between angular range and crystallization, the mapping makes it possible to shed new light on the glass-forming ability of network-forming tetrahedral liquids. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.