  We investigate the two-dimensional behavior of colloidal patchy ellipsoids
specifically designed to follow a two-step assembly process from the monomer
state to mesoscopic liquid-crystal phases, via the formation of so-called
bent-core units at the intermediate stage. Our model comprises a binary mixture
of ellipses interacting via the Gay-Berne potential and decorated by surface
patches, with the binary components being mirror-image variants of each other -
referred to as left-handed and right-handed ellipses according to the position
of their patches. The surface patches are designed so as in the first stage of
the assembly the monomers form bent-cores units, i.e. V-shaped dimers with a
specific bent angle. The Gay-Berne interactions, which act between the
ellipses, drive the dimers to subsequently form the characteristic phase
observed in bent-core liquid crystals. We numerically investigate -- by means
of both Molecular Dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations -- the described
two-step process: we first optimize a target bent-core unit and we then fully
characterize its state diagram in temperature and density, defining the regions
where the different liquid crystalline phases dominate.
