Related papers: Entropically Patchy Particles: Engineering Valence…
Polyhedra and their arrangements have intrigued humankind since the ancient Greeks and are today important motifs in condensed matter, with application to many classes of liquids and solids. Yet, little is known about the thermodynamically…
Patchy colloidal platelets with convex, non-spherical shapes have been realized with different materials at length scales ranging from nanometers to microns. While the assembly of these hard shapes tends to maximize edge-to-edge contacts,…
Understanding and manipulating the interactions between foreign bodies and cell membranes during endo- and phagocytosis is of paramount importance, not only for the fate of living cells but also for numerous biomedical applications. This…
One of the fundamental goals of nanotechnology is to exploit selective and directional interactions between molecules to design particles that self-assemble into desired structures, from capsids, to nano-clusters, to fully formed crystals…
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…
Spherical particles confined to a sphere surface cannot pack densely into a hexagonal lattice without defects. In this study, we use hard particle Monte Carlo simulations to determine the effects of continuously deformable shape anisotropy…
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…
In recent years, experimental and theoretical investigations have shown that anisotropic colloids can self-organise into ordered porous monolayers, where the interplay of localised bonding sites, so called patches, with the particle's shape…
The ordering of nanoparticles into predetermined configurations is of importance to the design of advanced technologies. In this work, we moderate the surface anchoring against the bulk elasticity of liquid crystals to dynamically shape…
Nanoparticles with "sticky patches" have long been proposed as building blocks for the self-assembly of complex structures. The synthetic realizability of such patchy particles, however, greatly lags behind predictions of patterns they…
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…
Direct design of complex functional materials would revolutionize technologies ranging from printable organs to novel clean energy devices. However, even incremental steps towards designing functional materials have proven challenging. If…
The relevance of anisotropic interactions in colloidal systems has recently emerged in the context of the rational design of new soft materials. Patchy colloids of different shapes, patterns and functionalities are considered the new…
Recent simulations have studied the formation of patterns in a binary mixture of immiscible surfactants absorbed onto the surface of a spherical nanoparticle. The resulting patterns (Janus, spots and stripes) were in good agreement with…
We use a mix of field theoretic and holographic techniques to elucidate various properties of quantum entanglement entropy. In (3+1)-dimensional conformal field theory we study the divergent terms in the entropy when the entangling surface…
Roughness and orientational order in thin films of anisotropic particles are investigated using kinetic Monte Carlo simulations on a cubic lattice. Anisotropic next-neighbor interactions between the lattice particles were chosen to mimic…
The specificity and thermal reversibility of DNA interactions have enabled the self-assembly of crystal structures, self-replicating materials and colloidal molecules. Grafting DNA onto liquid interfaces of emulsions leads to exciting new…
The behaviour of two-dimensional patchy particles with 5 and 7 regularly-arranged patches is investigated by computer simulation. For higher pressures and wider patch widths, hexagonal crystals have the lowest enthalpy, whereas at lower…
A major goal in nanoscience and nanotechnology is the self-assembly of any desired complex structure with a system of particles interacting through simple potentials. To achieve this objective, intense experimental and theoretical efforts…
Attractive dipole interactions can be induced between equally charged soft nanoparticles under the influence of AC electric fields. The combination of charge repulsion and dipole attraction, along with different screening responses from an…