Related papers: Behavior of colloidal particles at an air/nematic …
We consider a one-dimensional system comprising of $N$ run-and-tumble particles confined in a harmonic trap interacting via a repulsive inverse-square power-law interaction. We numerically compute the global density profile in the steady…
We investigate experimentally the single-particle motion in water of silica colloidal beads half-coated with carbon under the action of a converging laser beam. The beads are self-propelled in this medium by means of self-thermophoresis…
Colloidal particles are considered ideal building blocks to produce materials with enhanced physical properties. The state-of-the-art techniques for synthesizing these particles provide control over shape, size, and directionality of the…
Linear defects such as dislocations and disclinations in ordered materials attract foreign particles since they replace strong elastic distortions at the defect cores. In this work, we explore the behavior of isotropic droplets nucleating…
The ability to dictate colloid motion is an important challenge in fields ranging from materials science to living systems. Here, by embedding energy landscapes in confined nematic liquid crystals, we design a versatile platform to define…
We design a nematic collider for controlled out-of-equilibrium anisotropic aggregation of spherical colloidal particles. The nematic surrounding imparts dipolar interactions among the spheres. A bidirectional backflow of the nematic liquid…
By means of computer simulations we study how droplets of hard, rod-like particles optimize their shape and internal structure under the influence of the osmotic compression caused by the presence of spherical particles that act as…
The drying of colloidal suspensions leads to complex deposition patterns, accompanied by instabilities such as cracking and delamination. In this study, we experimentally investigate the coupled influence of particle surface charge and…
The interface chemistry of silicon nanocrystals (NCs) embedded in amorphous oxide matrix is studied through molecular dynamics simulations with the chemical environment described by the reactive force field model. Our results indicate that…
Using video-microscopy imaging we demonstrate the existence of a short-ranged equilibrium attraction between heavy silica colloids diffusing on soft surfaces of cross-linked polymer gels. The inter-colloid potential can be tuned by changing…
Monopole-like electrostatic interactions are ubiquitous in biology and condensed matter, but they are often screened by counter-ions and cannot be switched from attractive to repulsive. In colloidal science, where the prime goal is to…
Non-equilibrium transport of particles embedded in a liquid crystal host can, by cooling through a phase transition, be exploited to create a remarkable variety of structures including shells, foams, and gels. Due to the complexity of the…
We study the phase behavior of hard spheres confined between two parallel hard plates using extensive computer simulations. We determine the full equilibrium phase diagram for arbitrary densities and plate separations from one to five…
Real-life bacteria often swim in complex fluids, but our understanding of the interactions between bacteria and complex surroundings is still evolving. In this work, rod-like \textit{Bacillus subtilis} swims in a quasi-2D environment with…
Shape transformations of hairy nanoparticles under confinement are studied using molecular dynamic simulations. We discuss the behavior of these particles in slits with inert or attractive walls. We assume that only chain-wall interactions…
Liquid crystals in two dimensions undergo a first-order isotropic-to-quasi-nematic transition, provided the particle interactions are sufficiently ``sharp and narrow''. This implies phase coexistence between isotropic and quasi-nematic…
We study numerically how multiple deformable capsules squeeze into a constriction. This situation is largely encountered in microfluidic chips designed to manipulate living cells, which are soft entities. We use fully three-dimensional…
In this work we analyze the dynamical behavior of the collision between two clouds of fermionic atoms with opposite spin polarization. By means of the time-evolving block decimation (TEBD) numerical method, we simulate the collision of two…
One of the central experimental efforts in nematic colloids research aims to explore how the interplay between the geometry of particles along with the accompanying nematic director deformations and defects around them can provide a means…
The ability to control the movement and assembly of particles in liquid crystals is not only an important route to design functional materials, but also sheds light on the mechanisms of colloidal interactions. In this study we place…