Related papers: Relevance of Packing to Colloidal Self-Assembly
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…
Evaporative self-assembly offers a simple, cost-effective method for producing functional nanostructured materials. However, achieving tunable and ordered assemblies remains challenging, especially when working with complex building blocks…
Recent advancements in the synthesis of anisotropic macromolecules and nanoparticles have spurred an immense interest in theoretical and computational studies of self-assembly. The cornerstone of such studies is the role of shape in…
The role of particle shape in self-assembly processes is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, particle shape and particle elongation are often considered the most fundamental determinants of soft matter structure formation. On the other…
Packing of particles in confined environments is a common problem in multiple fields. Here, based on the two-dimensional Hertzian particle model, we study the packing of deformable spherical particles under compression, and reveal the…
Interaction between dipolar forces, such as permanent magnets, generally leads to the formation of one-dimensional chains and rings. We investigated whether it was possible to let dipoles self-assemble into three-dimensional structures by…
Aggregation processes in systems of planar macromolecules and colloids drive a broad range of phenomena in natural systems and soft materials. Depending on chemical architecture, intermolecular interactions in these systems may favor…
We study the problem of discrete geometric packing. Here, given weighted regions (say in the plane) and points (with capacities), one has to pick a maximum weight subset of the regions such that no point is covered more than its capacity.…
One versatile route to the creation of two-dimensional crystal structures on the nanometer to micrometer scale is the self-assembly of colloidal particles at an interface. Here, we explore the crystal phases that can be expected from the…
The physical gelation of colloids produces elastic structures that are commonly used to stabilize complex fluids in multiple industries. However, the ability to control the level of elastic modulus of these materials is limited by the…
As temperature drops, molecular systems may undergo spontaneous ordering, moving from random behavior to orderly structure. This research demonstrates a direct analogy between this type of thermodynamic ordering in molecular systems and the…
The goal of inverse self-assembly is to design inter-particle interactions capable of assembling the units into a desired target structure. The effective assembly of complex structures often requires the use of multiple components, each new…
A fundamental challenge in materials design is linking building block attributes to crystal structure. Addressing this challenge is particularly difficult for systems that exhibit emergent order, such as entropy-stabilized colloidal…
A colloidal dispersion droplet evaporating from a surface, such as a drying coffee drop, leaves a distinct ring-shaped stain. Although this mechanism is frequently used for particle self-assembly, the conditions for crystallization have…
We review theoretical explanation of mechanisms of control of uniformity in growth of nanosize particles and colloids. The nanoparticles are synthesized as nanocrystals, by burst nucleation from solution. The colloids are self-assembled by…
Just like atoms combine into molecules, colloids can self-organize into predetermined structures according to a set of design principles. Controlling valence -- the number of inter-particle bonds -- is a prerequisite for the assembly of…
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…
Colloidal model systems allow studying crystallization kinetics under fairly ideal conditions with rather well characterized pair interactions and minimized external influences. In complementary approaches therefore experiment, analytic…
The structure of nanoclusters is complex to describe due to their noncrystallinity, even though bonding and packing constraints limit the local atomic arrangements to only a few types. A computational scheme is presented to extract…
In this article we describe the crystallization conjecture. It states that, in appropriate physical conditions, interacting particles always place themselves into periodic configurations, breaking thereby the natural translation-invariance…