Related papers: Self-Assembly of Patchy Particles into Diamond Str…
Elastic sheets with macroscopic dimensions are easy to deform by bending and stretching. Yet shaping nanometric sheets by mechanical manipulation is hard. Here we show that nanoparticle self-assembly could be used to this end. We…
Quasicrystals are unique materials characterized by long-range order without periodicity. They are observed in systems such as metallic alloys, soft matter, and particle simulations. Unlike periodic crystals, which are invariant under…
Experiments have reached a monumental capacity for designing and synthesizing microscopic particles for self-assembly, making it possible to precisely control particle concentrations, shapes, and interactions. However, more physical insight…
A reliable explanation for the underlying mechanism responsible for the persistent aggregation and self-assembly of colloidal 5 nm diamond nanoparticles is critical to the development of nanodiamond-based technologies. Although a number of…
Motivated by recent experiments on colloidal systems with competing attractive and repulsive interactions, we simulate a two-dimensional system of colloids with competing interactions that can undergo fragmentation. In the absence of any…
Curved structures in soft matter and biological systems commonly emerge as a result of self-assembly processes where building blocks aggregate in a controlled manner, giving rise to specific system structure and properties. Learning how to…
An important goal of self-assembly is to achieve a preprogrammed structure with high fidelity. Here, we control the valence of DNA-functionalized emulsions to make linear and branched model polymers, or `colloidomers'. The distribution of…
Prediction of the glass forming ability (GFA) of alloys remains a major challenge. We are not able to predict the composition dependence of the GFA of even binary alloys. To investigate the effect of each element's propensity to form…
Colloidal particles dispersed in liquid crystals can form new materials with tunable elastic and electro-optic properties. In a periodic `blue phase' host, particles should template into colloidal crystals with potential uses in photonics,…
In this work we characterize the configurational space of a short chain of colloidal particles as function of the range of directional and heterogeneous isotropic interactions. The individual particles forming the chain are colloids…
The endeavor to selectively fabricate a cubic diamond is challenging due to the formation of competing phases such as its hexagonal polymorph or others possessing similar free energy. The necessity to achieve this is of paramount importance…
Open lattices are characterized by low volume-fraction arrangements of building blocks, low coordination number, and open spaces between building blocks. The self-assembly of these lattices faces the challenge of mechanical instability due…
Colloidal crystals with a diamond and pyrochlore structure display wide photonic band gaps at low refractive index contrasts. However, these low-coordinated and open structures are notoriously difficult to self-assemble from colloids…
We systematically investigate the self-assembly of anisotropic cone-shaped particles decorated by ring-like attractive patches. We demonstrate that the self-assembled clusters, which arise due to the conical particle's anisotropic shape…
We use Monte Carlo simulations and free-energy techniques to show that binary solutions of penta- and hexavalent two-dimensional patchy particles can form thermodynamically stable quasicrystals even at very narrow patch widths, provided…
In this study, a variational method for the inverse problem of self-assembly, i.e., a reconstruction of the interparticle interaction potential of a given structure, is applied to three-dimensional crystals. According to the method, the…
The possibility to align and organize faceted particles in the bulk offers intriguing possibilities for the design and discovery of materials and architectures exhibiting novel functional properties. The growth of ice crystals can be used…
Motivated by recent experimental findings in chemical synthesis of colloidal particles, we draw an analogy between self-assembly processes occurring in biological systems (e.g. protein folding) and a new exciting possibility in the field of…
Self-assembly is traditionally described as the process through which an initially disordered system relaxes towards an equilibrium ordered phase only driven by local interactions between its building blocks. However, This definition is too…
Recently, a silicon micromachining method to produce tetrahedral silicon particles was discovered. In this report we determine, using band structure calculations, the optical properties of diamond-lattice photonic crystals when assembled…