Title: Temperature-induced melting of entropically stabilized solid

Abstract: Do solids stabilized by entropy melt with increasing temperature? In order to address this puzzle we use computer simulations to study entropy-driven solidification and melting in binary mixtures of big and small particles interacting via a repulsive potential. At low temperatures and sufficiently large area fractions, big particles form solid clusters stabilized by the osmotic pressure of thesurrounding fluid of small particles. At higher temperatures the solid gradually melts and a homogeneous phase of big and small particles results. We show that increasing temperature enhances the interpenetration and reduces the effective radii of big particles. We argue that the resulting change of balance of free volume and mixing contributions to the entropy is responsible for the melting of the big particle solid. The implications of our results for experiments on asymmetric colloidal mixtures are discussed.