Related papers: Driving dynamic colloidal assembly using eccentric…
Controlling the flow of matter down to micrometer-scale confinement is of central importance in materials and environmental sciences, with direct applications in nano-microfluidics, drug delivery and biothechnology. Currents of…
We derive an upscaled model describing the aggregation and deposition of colloidal particles within a porous medium allowing for the possibility of local clogging of the pores. At the level of the pore scale, we extend an existing model for…
A trapping mechanism for propelled colloidal particles based on an inhomogeneous drive is presented and studied by means of computer simulations. In experiments this method can be realized using photophoretic Janus particles driven by a…
Colloidal particles are considered ideal building blocks to produce materials with enhanced physical properties. The state-of-the-art techniques for synthesizing these particles provide control over shape, size, and directionality of the…
Motivated by recent experimental findings in chemical synthesis of colloidal particles, we draw an analogy between self-assembly processes occurring in biological systems (e.g. protein folding) and a new exciting possibility in the field of…
The transport of motile entities across modulated energy landscapes plays an important role in a range of phenomena in biology, colloidal science and solid-state physics. Here, an easily implementable strategy that allows for the collective…
Systems containing active components are intrinsically out of equilibrium, while binary mixtures reach their equilibrium configuration when complete phase separation is achieved. Active particles are found to stabilise non-equilibrium…
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…
We study experimentally and numerically the motion of a self-phoretic active particle in two-dimensional (2D) loosely-packed colloidal crystals at fluid interfaces. Two scenarios emerge depending on the interaction between the active…
Colloidal particles hold promise for mobilizing and removing trapped immiscible fluids from porous media, with implications for key energy and water applications. Most studies focus on accomplishing this goal using particles that can…
Recent experiments with self-phoretic particles at low concentrations show a pronounced dynamic clustering [I. Theurkauff \emph{et al.}, Phys.\ Rev.\ Lett.\ \textbf{108}, 268303 (2012)]. We model this situation by taking into account the…
Using Brownian dynamics computer simulations we show that a two-dimensional suspension of self-propelled ("active") colloidal particles crystallizes at sufficiently high densities. Compared to the equilibrium freezing of passive particles…
In equilibrium, colloidal suspensions governed by short-range attractive and long-range repulsive interactions form thermodynamically stable clusters. Using Brownian dynamics computer simulations, we investigate how this equilibrium…
Motivated by recent experiments on colloidal systems with competing attractive and repulsive interactions, we simulate a two-dimensional system of colloids with competing interactions that can undergo fragmentation. In the absence of any…
Soft materials, such as colloidal suspensions, polymer solutions, and biological systems, are typically multicomponent mixtures of macromolecules and simpler components (e.g., microions, monomers, solvent) that can assemble into complex…
Transport phenomena in out-of-equilibrium systems is immensely important in a myriad of applications in biology, engineering and physics. Complex environments, such as the cytoplasm or porous media, can substantially affect the transport…
We propose a mechanism to control the formation of stable obstructions in two-dimensional micro-channels of variable sections taking advantage of the peculiar clustering property of active systems. Under the activation of the…
We present molecular dynamics simulations of aggregation kinetics in a colloidal suspension modeled as a highly asymmetric binary mixture. Starting from a configuration with largely uncorrelated colloidal particles the system relaxes by…
Colloidal particles can create reconfigurable nanomaterials, with applications such as color-changing, self-repairing, and self-regulating materials and reconfigurable drug delivery systems. However, top-down methods for manipulating…
Depinning transitions occur when a threshold force must be applied to drive an otherwise immobile system. For the depinning of colloidal particles from a corrugated landscape, we show how active noise due to self-propulsion impacts the…