Related papers: Relevance of Packing to Colloidal Self-Assembly
Fabrication of diamond structures by self-assembly is a fundamental challenge in making three-dimensional photonic crystals. We simulate a system of model hard particles with attractive patches and show that they can self-assemble into a…
In recent years, experimental and theoretical investigations have shown that anisotropic colloids can self-organise into ordered porous monolayers, where the interplay of localised bonding sites, so called patches, with the particle's shape…
Motivated by breakthroughs in the synthesis of faceted nano- and colloidal particles, as well as theoretical and computational studies of their packings, we investigate a family of truncated triangular bipyramids. We report dense periodic…
The possibility to align and organize faceted particles in the bulk offers intriguing possibilities for the design and discovery of materials and architectures exhibiting novel functional properties. The growth of ice crystals can be used…
Packing problems have been a source of fascination for millenia and their study has produced a rich literature that spans numerous disciplines. Investigations of hard-particle packing models have provided basic insights into the structure…
The existence of topological order is frequently associated with strongly coupled quantum matter. Here, we demonstrate the existence of topological phases in classical systems of densely packed, hard, anisotropic polyhedrally shaped…
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…
We demonstrate scaffolding of plasmonic nanoparticles by topological defects induced by colloidal microspheres to match their surface boundary conditions with a uniform far-field alignment in a liquid crystal host. Displacing energetically…
Colloids are abundant in nature, science and technology, with examples ranging from milk to quantum dots and the "colloidal atom" paradigm. Similarly, liquid crystal ordering is important in contexts ranging from biological membranes to…
A collection of spherical particles can be packed tightly together into an amorphous packing known as "random close packing" (RCP). This structure is of interest as a model for the arrangement of molecules in simple liquids and glasses, as…
Manipulating the way in which colloidal particles self-organise is a central challenge in the design of functional soft materials. Meeting this challenge requires the use of building blocks that interact with one another in a highly…
The self-assembly of particles into organized structures is a key feature of living organisms and a major engineering challenge. While it may proceed through the binding of perfectly matched, puzzle-pieces-like particles, many other…
The self-assembly of binary nanoparticle superlattices from colloidal mixtures is a promising method for the fabrication of complex colloidal co-crystal structures. However, binary mixtures often form amorphous or metastable phases instead…
If a collection of identical particles is poured into a container, different shapes will fill to different densities. But what is the shape that fills a container as close as possible to a pre-specified, desired density? We demonstrate a…
Packing problems, which ask how to arrange a collection of objects in space to meet certain criteria, are important in a great many physical and biological systems, where geometrical arrangements at small scales control behaviour at larger…
Hypothesis: Colloidal molecules with anisotropic shapes and interactions are powerful model systems for deciphering the behavior of real molecules and building units for creating materials with designed properties. While many strategies for…
An optimal control strategy is developed to construct nanostructures of desired geometry along line segments by means of directed self-assembly of charged particles. Such a control strategy determines the electric potentials of a set of…
The self-assembly of nanocrystals enables new classes of materials whose properties are controlled by the periodicities of the assembly, as well as by the size, shape and composition of the nanocrystals. While self-assembly of spherical…
Many standard structural quantities, such as order parameters and correlation functions, exist for common condensed matter systems, such as spherical and rod-like particles. However, these structural quantities are often insufficient for…
In the field of freezing colloidal suspensions, it is important to understand the particle-scale behavior of particle packing. Here, we reveal the dynamics of particle packing by identifying the behavior of each single particle in situ. The…