Related papers: Effective potentials induced by self-assembly of p…
A new theory is developed to describe the equilibrium adsorption and self-assembly of patchy colloids in microchannels. The adsorption theory is developed in classical density functional theory, with the adsorbed phase and fluid phase…
Active fluids generate spontaneous, often chaotic mesoscale flows. Harnessing these flows to drive embedded soft materials into structures with controlled length scales and lifetimes is a key challenge at the interface between the fields of…
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…
We present Monte Carlo simulations of colloidal particles pulled into grafted polymer layers by external fields. The insertion free energy of a single colloid into the polymer layer is qualitatively different for surfaces with an ordered…
Confinement can have a dramatic effect on the behavior of all sorts of particulate systems and it therefore is an important phenomenon in many different areas of physics and technology. Here, we investigate the role played by the softness…
We investigate the effective interactions between two nanoparticles (or colloids) immersed in a solvent exhibiting two-phase separation. Using a non-local density functional theory, we determine the dependence of the effective potential on…
We systematically studied the validity and transferability of effective, coarse-grained, pair potentials in ultrasoft colloidal systems. We focused on amphiphilic dendrimers, macromolecules which can aggregate into clusters of overlapping…
We study the self-assembly behaviour of patchy particles with `protein-like' interactions that can be considered as a minimal model for the assembly of viral capsids and other shell-like protein complexes. We thoroughly explore the…
We perform simulations to compute the effective potential between the centers-of-mass of two polymers with reversible bonds. We investigate the influence of the topology of the unbonded precursor (linear or ring) and the specific sequence…
Limited-valency colloidal particles can self-assemble into polymeric structures analogous to molecules. While their structural equilibrium properties have attracted wide attention, insight into their dynamics has proven challenging. Here,…
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…
Solutions of interacting linear polymers are mapped onto a system of ``soft'' spherical particles interacting via an effective pair potential. This coarse-graining reduces the individual monomer-level description to a problem involving only…
Within the framework of a discrete Gaussian model, we present analytical results for the interaction induced by a lamellar phase between small embedded colloids. We consider the two limits of particles strongly adherent to the adjacent…
While colloids are promising building blocks for the self-assembly of materials with novel microstructures, their numerous tunable parameters inhibit brute force searching for appropriate parameter combinations that yield self-assembly of a…
The design of complex materials and the formation of specific patterns often arise from the properties of the individual building blocks. In this respect, colloidal systems offer a unique opportunity because nowadays they can be synthesized…
The present review summarizes and assesses recent theoretical and experimental advances, with special emphasis on the effective interaction between charge-stabilized colloids, in the bulk or in confined geometries, and on the ambiguities of…
The transport properties of colloidal particles in active liquids have been studied extensively. It has led to a deeper understanding of the interactions between passive and active particles. However, the phase behavior of colloidal…
We report observations of the self-assembly of coated droplets into regular clusters at the sudden expansion of a microfluidic channel. A double emulsion consisting of a regular train of coated microdroplets was created upstream of the…
Polymer chains in colloid-polymer mixtures can be coarse-grained by replacing them with single soft particles interacting via effective polymer-polymer and polymer-colloid pair potentials. Here we describe in detail how Ornstein-Zernike…
Multiple dissipative self-assembly protocols designed to create novel structures or to reduce kinetic traps have recently emerged. Specifically, temporal oscillations of particle interactions have been shown effective at both aims, but…