Related papers: Relevance of Packing to Colloidal Self-Assembly
Mutually repelling particles form spontaneously ordered clusters when forced into confinement. The clusters may adopt similar spatial arrangements even if the underlying particle interactions are contrastingly different. Here we demonstrate…
Structural quantities such as order parameters and correlation functions are often employed to gain insight into the physical behavior and properties of condensed matter systems. While standard quantities for characterizing structure exist,…
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…
During directional solidification of the solvent in a colloidal suspension, the colloidal particles segregate from the growing solid, forming high-particle-density regions with structure on a hierarchy of length scales ranging from that of…
Rigid particles pack into structures, such as sand dunes on the beach, whose overall stability is determined by the average number of contacts between particles. However, when packing spatially extended objects with flexible shapes,…
The intricate interplay between colloidal particle shape and precisely engineered interaction potentials has paved the way for the discovery of unprecedented crystal structures in both two and three dimensions. Here, we make use of…
Self-assembly of nanoparticles can enable composites with pre-designed properties but remains challenged by reproducing structural diversity of atomic and molecular crystals. We combine anisotropic elastic and weakly screened electrostatic…
Particles with directional interactions are promising building blocks for new functional materials and may serve as models for biological structures. Mutually attractive nanoparticles that are deformable due to flexible surface groups, for…
We study the optimal packing of short, hard spherocylinders confined to lie tangential to a spherical surface, using simulated annealing and molecular dynamics simulations. For clusters of up to twelve particles, we map out the changes in…
One emerging approach for the fabrication of complex architectures on the nanoscale is to utilize particles customized to intrinsically self-assemble into a desired structure. Inverse methods of statistical mechanics have proven…
Physical systems are frequently modeled as sets of points in space, each representing the position of an atom, molecule, or mesoscale particle. As many properties of such systems depend on the underlying ordering of their constituent…
Granular crystallisation is an important phenomenon whereby ordered packing structures form in granular matter under vibration. However, compared with the well-developed principles of crystallisation at the atomic scale, crystallisation in…
Understanding the relationship between colloidal building block shape and self-assembled material structure is important for the development of novel materials by self-assembly. In this regard, colloidal superballs are unique building…
Understanding protein self-assembly is important for many biological and industrial processes. Proteins can self-assemble into crystals, filaments, gels, and other amorphous aggregates. The final forms include virus capsids and condensed…
In micro- and nano-scale systems, particles can be moved by using an external force like gravity or a magnetic field. In the presence of adhesive particles that can attach to each other, the challenge is to decide whether a shape is…
We show that geometric frustration in a broad class of deformable and naturally curved, shell-like colloidal particles gives rise to self-limiting assembly of finite-sized stacks that far exceed particle dimensions. When inter-particle…
Colloidal self-assembly -- the spontaneous organization of colloids into ordered structures -- has been considered key to produce next-generation materials. However, the present-day staggering variety of colloidal building blocks and the…
It is commonly believed that the most efficient way to pack a finite number of equal-sized spheres is by arranging them tightly in a cluster. However, mathematicians have conjectured that a linear arrangement may actually result in 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…
Dense polyhedron packings are useful models of a variety of condensed matter and biological systems and have intrigued scientists mathematicians for centuries. Recently, organizing principles for the types of structures associated with the…