Figure 1

Simulation snapshot of a system with $N=8000$ particles at temperature $T^{*}=0.01$ and number density ${\rho }^{*}=0.8$. Cations and anions are shown in black and white. Note that the direction of the charge layers is in general oriented randomly with respect to the simulation box frame, but has been rotated here to facilitate visualization of the charge ordering.Reuse & Permissions

Figure 2

Mass (dashed lines) and charge (solid lines) density histograms corresponding to the three different phases of oblate charged ellipsoids discussed here. Top: High-temperature nematic phase with no charge ordering. Center: Smectic, charge-ordered phase. Bottom: Hexagonal columnar low-temperature phase. The longitudinal axis of the systems is the eigenvector associated with $P_2$ for both the nematic and the smectic phase, while for the low-temperature columnar phase the dipole director associated with $P_2^d$ is used (see text).Reuse & Permissions

Figure 3

Results for the order parameters (defined in the text) as functions of temperature. Error bars are not shown if the symbol size is not exceeded. Dotted lines serve to illustrate the phase boundaries.Reuse & Permissions

Figure 4

Charge correlation functions $g_{\mathrm{long}}(r)$ and $g_{\mathrm{trans}}(r)$ along the longitudinal and transverse directions, respectively. Results are shown for the smectic charge-ordered phase at $T^{*}=0.105$ and the solid crystalline phase at $T^{*}=0.0605$. $++/--$ and $+-$ denote correlation functions between particles of equal and opposite charges, respectively.Reuse & Permissions