Related papers: Chiral Self-Assembly of Helical Particles

Molecular chirality frustrates the two-dimensional assembly of filamentous molecules, a fact that reflects the generic impossibility of imposing a global twisting of layered materials. We explore the consequences of this frustration for…

Recent experiments on vesicles formed from block copolymers with liquid-crystalline side-chains reveal a rich variety of vesicle morphologies. The additional internal order ("structure") developed by these self-assembled block copolymer…

The self-assembly of functionalized (patchy) particles with directional interactions into target structures is still a challenge, despite the significant experimental advances on their synthesis. The self-assembly pathways are typically…

Chirality in inorganic nanoparticles and nanostructures has gained increasing scientific interest, because of the possibility to tune their ability to interact differently with left- and right-handed circularly polarized light. In some…

We investigate experimentally and numerically the defect configurations emerging when a cholesteric liquid crystal is confined to a spherical shell. We uncover a rich scenario of defect configurations, some of them non-existent in nematic…

The native state structures of globular proteins are stable and well-packed indicating that self-interactions are favored over protein-solvent interactions under folding conditions. We use this as a guiding principle to derive the geometry…

We study the effects of chirality at the segment scale on the thermodynamics of block copolymer melts using self consistent field theory. In linear diblock melts where segments of one block prefer a twisted, or cholesteric, texture, we show…

We numerically investigate the phase behavior of thick shells of cholesteric liquid crystals with tangential anchoring at the shell boundary. For achiral liquid crystal, we demonstrate a thickness-dependent transition from a configuration…

Based on micromagnetic simulations, we report on a novel helical magnetic structure in a soft magnetic film that is sandwiched between and exchange-coupled to two hard magnetic layers. Confined between antiparallel hard magnetic moments, a…

We investigate the self-assembly of two-dimensional dodecagonal quasicrystals driven by cyclic shear, effectively replacing thermal fluctuations with plastic rearrangements. Using particles interacting via a smoothed square-shoulder…

Multi-component aggregates are being intensively researched in various fields because of their highly tunable properties and wide applications. Due to the complex configurational space of these systems, research would greatly benefit from a…

Anisotropic colloidal particles have the ability to self-assemble into cholesteric structures. We used molecular dynamics to simulate the self-assembly of ellipsoidal particles with the objective to establish a general framework to reveal…

We study the phase behaviour of cholesteric liquid crystal shells with different geometries. We compare the cases of tangential and no anchoring at the surface, focussing on the former case, which leads to a competition between the…

Inspired by recent experiments on the spatial organization of bacterial chromosomes, we consider a type of "bottle brush" polymer consisting of a flexible backbone chain, to which flexible side loops are connected. We show that such a model…

Self-assembly at submicroscopic scales is an important but little understood phenomenon. A prominent example is virus capsid growth, whose underlying behavior can be modeled using simple particles that assemble into polyhedral shells.…

It has recently been shown that identical, isotropic particles can form complex crystals and quasicrystals. In order to understand the relation between the particle interaction and the structure, which it stabilizes, the phase behavior of a…

We use numerical simulations to understand how random deviations from the ideal spherical shape affect the ability of hard particles to form fcc crystalline structures. Using a system of hard spheres as a reference, we determine the…

Hard models for particle interactions have played a crucial role in the understanding of the structure of condensed matter. In particular, they help to explain the formation of oriented phases in liquids made of anisotropic molecules or…

The shape of biological shells, such as cell nuclei, membranes, and vesicles, often deviates from a perfect sphere due to an interplay of complex interactions with a myriad of molecular structures. In particular, semiflexible biopolymers…

We review recent progress in the theoretical description of anisotropic hard colloidal particles. The shapes considered range from rods and dumbbells to rounded cubes, polyhedra and to biaxial particles with arbitrary shape. Our focus is on…