Related papers: Relevance of Packing to Colloidal Self-Assembly
Three-dimensional discrete numerical simulation is used to investigate the properties of close-packed frictionless granular assemblies as a function of particle polydispersity and shape. Unlike some experimental results, simulations show…
Understanding the out-of equilibrium behaviour of point defects in crystals, yields insights into the nature and fragility of the ordered state, as well as being of great practical importance. In some rare cases defects are spontaneously…
An ellipsoid, the simplest non-spherical shape, has been extensively used as models for elongated building blocks for a wide spectrum of molecular, colloidal and granular systems. Yet the densest packing of congruent hard ellipsoids, which…
Entropic self-assembly is governed by the shape of the constituent particles, yet a priori prediction of crystal structures from particle shape alone is non-trivial for anything but the simplest of space-filling shapes. At the same time,…
We present a theoretical description of a mechanism for self assembly in binary soft nanoparticle systems of the type which were studied experimentally by Talapin et al [1]. We focus on, in particular, the conditions for formation of…
Higher-dimensional orthogonal packing problems have a wide range of practical applications, including packing, cutting, and scheduling. Previous efforts for exact algorithms have been unable to avoid structural problems that appear for…
We investigate the self-assembly (crystallisation) of particles with hard cores and isotropic, square-well interactions, using a Monte Carlo scheme to simulate overdamped Langevin dynamics. We measure correlation and response functions…
We assemble charged colloidal spheres at deliberately chosen locations on a charged unstructured glass substrate utilizing ion exchange based electro-osmotic micro-pumps. Using microscopy, a simple scaling theory and Brownian Dynamics…
Although buckling is a prime route to achieve functionalization and synthesis of single colloids, buckling of colloidal structures---made up of multiple colloids---remains poorly studied. Here, we investigate the buckling of the simplest…
An extremely broad and important class of phenomena in nature involves the settling and aggregation of matter under gravitation in fluid systems. Some examples include: sedimenting marine snow particles in lakes and oceans (central to…
We present a new numerical scheme to study systems of non-convex, irregular, and punctured particles in an efficient manner. We employ this method to analyze regular packings of odd-shaped bodies, not only from a nanoparticle but also both…
The assembly of colloidal cubic diamond is a challenging process since the shape and interaction parameters and the thermodynamic conditions where this structure is stable are elusive. The simultaneous use of shape-anisotropic particles and…
The ability to control the crystallization behaviour (including its absence) of particles, be they biomolecules such as globular proteins, inorganic colloids, nanoparticles, or metal atoms in an alloy, is of both fundamental and…
Dense hard-particle packings are intimately related to the structure of low-temperature phases of matter and are useful models of heterogeneous materials and granular media. Most studies of the densest packings in three dimensions have…
The design of complex materials and the formation of specific patterns often arise from the properties of the individual building blocks. In this respect, colloidal systems offer a unique opportunity because nowadays they can be synthesized…
Molecular packing, crystallinity, and texture of semiconducting polymers are often critical to performance. Although frame-works exist to quantify the ordering, interpretations are often just qualitative, resulting in imprecise and liberal…
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…
We study the effects of the optical binding force on wavelength sized colloidal particles free to move in a counter-propagating beam. This work is motivated by the concept of using optical binding to direct the assembly of large numbers of…
We study the depletion-induced self-assembly of indented colloids. Using state-of-the-art Monte Carlo simulation techniques that treat the depletant particles explicitly, we demonstrate that colloids assemble by a lock-and-key mechanism,…
Patchy colloids with highly directional interactions are ideal building blocks to control the local arrangements resulting from their spontaneous self-organization. Here we propose their use, combined with substrates and nonequilibrium…