Related papers: Controlling active self-assembly through broken pa…
Small objects floating on a fluid have a tendency to aggregate due to capillary forces. This effect has been used, with the help of a magnetic induction field, to assemble submillimeter metallic spheres into a variety of structures, whose…
We consider a phase-separating mixture of active and passive fluids and explore morphological asymmetries of the emerging dominantly bicontinous dynamic emulsion. Two-dimensional numerical simulations reveal that the geometric and…
The design of desired behaviors in mechanical metamaterials has produced remarkable advances but has generally neglected two aspects - the inevitable presence of undesired behaviors and the role of dynamics in avoiding such behaviors.…
Spontaneous self-assembly in molecular systems is a fundamental route to both biological and engineered soft matter. Simple micellisation, emulsion formation, and polymer mixing principles are well understood. However, the principles behind…
Understanding collective properties of driven particle systems is significant for naturally occurring aggregates and because the knowledge gained can be used as building blocks for the design of artificial ones. We model self propelling…
Ratchet effects can arise for single or collectively interacting Brownian particles on an asymmetric substrate when a net dc transport is produced by an externally applied ac driving force or by periodically flashing the substrate.…
The macroscopic behaviour of active matter arises from nonequilibrium microscopic processes. In soft materials, active stresses typically drive macroscopic shape changes, which in turn alter the geometry constraining the microscopic…
The dynamics of a self-propelled particle are typically hard-wired by its microscopic construction, limiting the range of behaviors accessible without redesigning the particle itself. Here we show that intramolecular nonreciprocity provides…
How do topological defects affect the degree of order in active matter? To answer this question we investigate an agent-based model of self-propelled particles, which accounts for polar alignment and short-ranged repulsive interactions. For…
Symmetry properties of the evolution equation and the state to be controlled are shown to determine the basic features of the linear control of unstable orbits. In particular, the selection of control parameters and their minimal number are…
Hydrodynamical interactions of active micro-particles are pervasive in our planet's fluid environments. Hence, understanding the interactions of these self-propelled particles is essential for science and engineering. In this paper the…
Active constituents burn fuel to sustain individual motion, giving rise to collective effects that are not seen in systems at thermal equilibrium, such as phase separation with purely repulsive interactions. There is a great potential in…
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…
In living cells, proteins self-assemble into large functional structures based on specific interactions between molecularly complex patches. Due to this complexity, protein self-assembly results from a competition between a large number of…
A binary mixture of particles interacting with spherically-symmetric potentials leading to microsegregation is studied by theory and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. We consider spherical particles with equal diameters and volume…
The structure and degree of order in soft matter and other materials is intimately connected to the nature of the interactions between the particles. One important research goal is to find suitable control mechanisms, to enhance or suppress…
Recent advances in the field of active soft matter promise a lot. Both, experimental advances and theoretical understanding point towards new material classes in reach, for example self-healing materials that might switch their properties…
Self-assembly kinetics is usually described by approaches which assume that the shape of the aggregates has a definite form (e.g., spherical, cylindrical, cubic, etc), however that is unlikely to be the case in many finite-sized…
Co-assembly of inorganic nanoparticles (NPs) and nanostructured polymer matrix represents an intricate interplay of enthalpic or entropic forces. Particle size largely affects the phase behavior of the nanocomposite. Theoretical studies…
Directed growth, anisotropic cell shapes, and confinement drive self-organization in multicellular systems. We investigate the influence of particle shape on the distribution and dynamics of nematic microdomains in a minimal in-silico model…