Efficient method for predicting crystal structures at finite temperature : variable box shape simulations

Abstract

We present an efficient and robust method based on Monte Carlo simulations for predicting crystal structures at finite temperature. We apply this method, which is surprisingly easy to implement, to a variety of systems, demonstrating its effectiveness for hard, attractive, and anisotropic interactions, binary mixtures, semi-long-range soft interactions, and truly long-range interactions where the truly long-range interactions are treated using Ewald sums. In the case of binary hard-sphere mixtures, star polymers, and binary Lennard-Jones mixtures, the crystal structures predicted by this algorithm are consistent with literature, providing confidence in the method. Finally, we predict new crystal structures for hard asymmetric dumbbell particles, bowl-like particles and hard oblate cylinders and present the phase diagram for the oblate cylinders based on full free energy calculations.