Related papers: Triclinic nematic colloidal crystals from competin…
We exploit the long-ranged elastic fields inherent to confined nematic liquid crystals to assemble colloidal particles trapped at the liquid crystal interface into reconfigurable structures with complex symmetries and packings. Spherical…
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…
Colloidal Janus spheres in water (one hemisphere attractive and the other repulsive) assemble into two-dimensional hexagonal crystals with orientational order controlled by anisotropic interactions. We exploit the decoupled translational…
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 ordering of rod-like particles in soft, deformable containers emerges from the interplay of anisotropic interactions, geometric confinement, and boundary compliance. This competition couples internal particle organization to container…
Colloidal particles, amphiphiles, and functionalized nanoparticles are examples of systems that frequently exhibit short-range attractions coupled with long-range repulsions. In this work, we observe striking differences in the dynamics of…
Understanding the drift motion and dynamical locking of crystalline clusters on patterned substrates is important for the diffusion and manipulation of nano- and micro-scale objects on surfaces. In a previous work, we studied the…
Particle shape and medium chirality are two key features recently used to control anisotropic colloidal self-assembly and dynamics in liquid crystals. Here, we study magnetically responsive gourd-shaped colloidal particles dispersed in…
Mott transitions in real materials are first order and almost always associated with lattice distortions, both features promoting the emergence of nanotextured phases. This nanoscale self-organization creates spatially inhomogeneous…
Engineered nanoparticles made from noble metals, rare-earth oxides or semiconductors are emerging as the central constituents of future nanotech developments. In this review, a survey of the complexing strategies between nanoparticles and…
The elastic and capillary interactions between a pair of colloidal particles trapped on top of a nematic film are studied theoretically for large separations $d$. The elastic interaction is repulsive and of quadrupolar type, varying as…
Self-organized complex structures in nature, e.g. viral capsids, hierarchical biopolymers, and bacterial flagella, offer efficiency, adaptability, robustness, and multi-functionality. Can we program the self-assembly of three-dimensional…
In an elegant paper, D. Nelson suggested a method to produce tetravalent colloids based on a tetrahedral configuration created on the surface of a spherical particle. It emerges from a two-dimensional nematic liquid crystal placed on a…
Complex colloidal cluster morphologies are desirable for the fabrication of advanced materials, such as photonic crystals and meta-materials, and can be formed through evaporation-driven packing. By coupling lattice Boltzmann and discrete…
Nanoscale topologically non-trivial magnetization configurations generate significant interest due to both the fundamental properties of their knotted structures and their potential applications in ultra-efficient computing devices. While…
Two-dimensional colloidal suspensions exposed to periodic external fields exhibit a variety of molecular crystalline phases. There two or more colloids assemble at lattice sites of potential minima to build new structural entities, referred…
We study the self-assembly of colloidal microgel particles at a quasi-two-dimensional air-water interface of a drying droplet. Using bright-field microscopy, we demonstrate that increasing particle elasticity drives interfacial organization…
In experiments, an individual chemically active liquid crystal (LC) droplet submerged in the bulk of a surfactant solution may self-propel along a straight, helical, or random trajectory. In this paper, we develop a minimal model capturing…
Colloidal particles in polymer solutions and functionalized nanoparticles often exhibit short-range attraction coupled with long-range repulsion (SALR) leading to the spontaneous formation of symmetric patterns. Chiral nanostructures formed…
Colloidal molecules are designed to mimic their molecular analogues through their anisotropic shape and interactions. However, current experimental realizations are missing the structural flexibility present in real molecules thereby…