Bott, Matthias Christian Brader, Joseph M. 2016-07-05 Motivated by observations of heterogeneous domain structure on the surface of cells, we consider a minimal model to describe the dynamics of phase separation on the surface of a spherical particle. Finite-size effects on the curved particle surface lead to the formation of long-lived, metastable states for which the density is distributed in patches over the particle surface. We study the time evolution and stability of these states as a function of both the particle size and the thermodynamic parameters. Finally, by connecting our findings with studies of patchy particles, we consider the implications for self-assembly in many-particle systems. application/pdf https://folia.unifr.ch/global/documents/305117 https://folia.unifr.ch/documents/305117/files/bra_pss.pdf eng info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1103/PhysRevE.94.012603 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess License undefined Physical Review E. - 2016, vol. 94, no. 1, p. 12603 info:eu-repo/classification/udc/53 Phase separation on the sphere: Patchy particles and self-assembly http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501