Related papers: Close packing of rods on spherical surfaces
For many applications, it is important to catch collections of autonomously navigating microbes and man-made microswimmers in a controlled way. Here we propose an efficient trap to collectively capture self-propelled colloidal rods. By…
We use molecular dynamics computer simulations to study the equilibrium properties of the surface of amorphous silica. Two types of geometries are investigated: i) clusters with different diameters (13.5\AA, 19\AA, and 26.5\AA) and ii) a…
We show that the optimal packing of hard spheres in an infinitely long cylinder yields structures characterised by a screw symmetry. Each packing can be assembled by stacking a basic unit cell ad infinitum along the length of the cylinder…
We study the (near or close to) ground state distribution of N softly repelling particles trapped in the interior of a spherical box. The charges mutually interact via an inverse power law potential of the form $1/r^\gamma$. We study three…
Rod-like objects at high packing fractions can form smectic phases, where the rods break rotational and translational symmetry by forming lamellae. Smectic defects thereby include both discontinuities in the rod orientational order…
Rigid particles pack into structures, such as sand dunes on the beach, whose overall stability is determined by the average number of contacts between particles. However, when packing spatially extended objects with flexible shapes,…
A simple three-dimensional model of a fluid whose constituent particles interact via a short range attractive and long range repulsive potential is used to model the aggregation into large spherical-like clusters made up of hundreds of…
What particle shape will generate the highest packing fraction when randomly poured into a container? In order to explore and navigate the enormous search space efficiently, we pair molecular dynamics simulations with artificial evolution.…
A system of hard spheroplatelets near an impenetrable wall is studied in the low-density Onsager approximation. Spheroplatelets have optimal shape between rods and plates, and the direct transition from the isotropic to biaxial nematic…
The assembly of colloids in nematic liquid crystals via topological defects has been extensively studied for spherical particles, and investigations of other colloid shapes have revealed a wide array of new assembly behaviors. We show,…
We use molecular dynamics to study the ordering of a nematic liquid crystal around a spherical particle or droplet. Homeotropic boundary conditions and strong anchoring create a hedgehog director configuration on the particle surface and in…
We explore structural and dynamical behavior of concentrated colloidal suspensions made up by C-shape particles using Brownian dynamics computer simulations and theory. In particular, we focus on the entanglement process between nearby…
We examine packing of $n$ congruent spheres in a cube when $n$ is close but less than the number of spheres in a regular cubic close-packed (ccp) arrangement of $\lceil p^{3}/2\rceil$ spheres. For this family of packings, the previous…
Here we report experiments on particle cluster settling at high Reynolds number in quiescent fluid contained in a vessel. The particles were observed to settle in a near-circular shape irrespective of the shape of the vessel cross-section…
We calculate the configurational entropy of colloidal particles in a confined geometry interacting as hard disks using Monte Carlo integration method. In particular, we consider systems with three kinds of boundary conditions: hard,…
The inherent structure landscape for a system of hard spheres confined to a hard cylindrical channel, such that spheres can only contact their first and second neighbours, is studied using an analytical model that extends previous results…
Recent theories predict that when a supercooled liquid approaches the glass transition, particle clusters with a special "amorphous order" nucleate within the liquid, which lead to static correlations dictating the dramatic slowdown of…
A random packing of hard particles represents a fundamental model for granular matter. Despite its importance, analytical modeling of random packings remains difficult due to the existence of strong correlations which preclude the…
At low temperatures, colloidal particles with short-range attractive and long-range repulsive interactions can form various periodic microphases in bulk.In this paper, we investigate the self-assembly behaviour of colloids with competing…
Finding the optimal random packing of non-spherical particles is an open problem with great significance in a broad range of scientific and engineering fields. So far, this search has been performed only empirically on a case-by-case basis,…