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A novel method to investigate the compaction behaviour of cohesive powders is presented. As a sample, a highly porous agglomerate formed by random ballistic deposition (RBD) of micron sized spherical particles is used. A nanomanipulator…
Particles with directional interactions are promising building blocks for new functional materials and may serve as models for biological structures. Mutually attractive nanoparticles that are deformable due to flexible surface groups, for…
The quasistatic behavior of a simple 2D model of a cohesive powder under isotropic loads is investigated by Discrete Element simulations. The loose packing states, as studied in a previous paper, undergo important structural changes under…
Building structures with hierarchical order through the self-assembly of smaller blocks is not only a prerogative of nature, but also a strategy to design artificial materials with tailored functions. We explore in simulation the…
Bacteriophages densely pack their long dsDNA genome inside a protein capsid. The conformation of the viral genome inside the capsid is consistent with a hexagonal liquid crystalline structure. Experiments have confirmed that the details of…
A liquid crystal continuum modeling framework for icosahedra bacteriophage viruses is developed and tested. The main assumptions of the model are the chromonic columnar hexagonal structure of confined DNA, the high resistance to bending and…
A model of growth of icosahedral viral capsids is proposed. It takes into account the diversity of hexamers' compositions, leading to definite capsid size. We show that the observed yield of capsid production implies a very high level of…
We investigate a set of design principles that link specific features of interparticle interactions to predictable structural and dynamic outcomes in two-dimensional self-assembly, a framework relevant to soft matter and biological…
We analyze the isotropic compaction of mixtures composed of rigid and deformable incompressible particles by the non-smooth contact dynamics approach (NSCD). The deformable bodies are simulated using a hyper-elastic neo-Hookean constitutive…
How pattern and form are generated in a reproducible manner during embryogenesis remains poorly understood. Intestinal organoid morphogenesis involves a number of mechanochemical regulators, including cell-type specific cytoskeletal forces…
We systematically study the design of simple patchy sphere models that reversibly self-assemble into monodisperse icosahedral clusters. We find that the optimal patch width is a compromise between structural specificity (the patches must be…
Block copolymer melts self-assemble in the bulk into a variety of nanostructures, making them perfect candidates to template the position of nanoparticles. The morphological changes of block copolymers are studied in the presence of a…
One emerging approach for the fabrication of complex architectures on the nanoscale is to utilize particles customized to intrinsically self-assemble into a desired structure. Inverse methods of statistical mechanics have proven…
Cells attach to their environment by means of focal adhesions, which are molecular complexes that exhibit the remarkable ability to adapt to mechanical load by changing their size. Drawing from the biomolecular mechanisms underlying this…
We show that geometric frustration in a broad class of deformable and naturally curved, shell-like colloidal particles gives rise to self-limiting assembly of finite-sized stacks that far exceed particle dimensions. When inter-particle…
The mechanical deformability of single cells is an important indicator for various diseases such as cancer, blood diseases and inflammation. Lab-on-a-chip devices allow to separate such cells from healthy cells using hydrodynamic forces. We…
Assembly of protein complexes like virus shells, the centriole, the nuclear pore complex or the actin cytoskeleton is strongly determined by their spatial structure. Moreover it is becoming increasingly clear that the reversible nature of…
The surface curvature of membranes, interfaces, and substrates plays a crucial role in shaping the self-assembly of particles adsorbed on these surfaces. However, little is known about the interplay between particle anisotropy and surface…
The self-assembly of highly anisotropic colloidal particles leads to a rich variety of morphologies, whose properties are just beginning to be understood. This article uses computer simulations to probe a particle-scale perturbation of a…
The self-assembly of hard polyhedral particles confined to a flat interface is studied using Monte Carlo simulations. The particles are pinned to the interface by restricting their movement in the direction perpendicular to it while…