Out-of-equilibrium self-assembly of binary mixtures of nanoparticles

A model that describes an experimental realization of a thin film that completely wets substrate and contains two species of nanoparticles, is presented. The dynamics of the model are stochastic, both for fluctuations in solvent density and for nanoparticle diffusion. The coarsening of the nanoparticle domains is essentially that of an appropriate one-component fluid when the evaporation is spatially uniform. However, the systems form network- or fractal-like structures when the evaporation is heterogeneous in space and the domain edges are effectively frozen when the evaporation is complete.