What is a Janus Fluid?

Abstract

The recent development of new sophisticated synthesis laboratory techniques in the field of colloidal particles allowed the realization of the Janus fluid in the laboratory and his characterization. In parallel, recent Monte Carlo simulations on the Kern and Frenkel model of the Janus fluid have revealed that in the vapor phase, below the critical point, there is the formation of preferred inert clusters made up of a well defined number of particles: the micelles and the vesicles. This is responsible for a re-entrant gas branch of the gas-liquid coexistence curve of the phase diagram. Detailed account of these new developments and new findings are given in the chapter where the Janus fluid is introduced at a statistical physics theoretical level outlining the progresses made in the use of the most common statistical physics instruments to study such a complex fluid, like the numerical simulations, the integral equation approach, and the thermodynamic perturbation approach.

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