Related papers: High-order elastic multipoles as colloidal atoms
The geometric shape, symmetry, and topology of colloidal particles often allow for controlling colloidal phase behavior and physical properties of these soft matter systems. In liquid crystalline dispersions, colloidal particles with low…
We design dipolar quantum many-body Hamiltonians that will facilitate the realization of exotic quantum phases under current experimental conditions achieved for polar molecules. The main idea is to modulate both single-body potential…
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…
In this paper we propose an ab initio method to solve quantum many-body problems of molecular dynamics where both the electronic and the nuclear degrees are represented by ensembles of trajectories and guiding waves in physical space. Both…
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…
Topology can manifest itself in colloids when quantified by invariants like Euler characteristics of nonzero-genus colloidal surfaces, albeit spherical colloidal particles are most often studied, and colloidal particles with complex…
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…
Accurate representation of the molecular electrostatic potential, which is often expanded in distributed multipole moments, is crucial for an efficient evaluation of intermolecular interactions. Here we introduce a machine learning model…
We use molecular dynamics to study the ordering of a nematic liquid crystal around a spherical particle or droplet. Homeotropic boundary conditions and strong anchoring create a hedgehog director configuration on the particle surface and in…
Recent experiments have exploited elastic instabilities in membranes to create complex patterns. However, the rational design of such structures poses many challenges, as they are products of nonlinear elastic behavior. We pose a simple…
Phase separation, crucial for spatially segregating biomolecules in cells, is well-understood in the simple case of a few components with pairwise interactions. Yet, biological cells challenge the simple picture in at least two ways: First,…
We present a detailed numerical study of multi-component colloidal gels interacting sterically and obtained by arrested phase separation. Under deformation, we found that the interplay between the different intertwined networks is key.…
We review recent progress in the theoretical description of anisotropic hard colloidal particles. The shapes considered range from rods and dumbbells to rounded cubes, polyhedra and to biaxial particles with arbitrary shape. Our focus is on…
Nematic shells are colloidal particles coated with nematic liquid crystal molecules which may freely glide and rotate on the colloid's surface while keeping their long axis on the local tangent plane. We describe the nematic order on a…
Liquid crystal elastomers are special cross-linked polymer materials combining the large elastic deformability of elastomers with the orientational orders of liquid crystals. This model exhibits markedly different phenomena than the liquid…
The most fundamental model of a molecule is a cloud of unordered atoms, even without chemical bonds that can depend on thresholds for distances and angles. The strongest equivalence between clouds of atoms is rigid motion, which is a…
Combining topology and plasmonics paradigms in nanocolloidal systems may enable new means of pre-engineering desired composite material properties. Here we design and realize orientationally ordered assemblies of noble metal nanoparticles…
The cell nucleus is increasingly recognized as a mechanosensitive organelle whose mesoscale mechanical heterogeneity (100 nm 10 um) is inseparable from genome regulation yet remains weakly integrated into systems biology and omics…
Colloidal systems find important applications ranging from fabrication of photonic crystals to direct probing of phenomena typically encountered in atomic crystals and glasses. New applications - such as nanoantennas, plasmonic sensors, and…
Dynamical heterogeneities in a colloidal fluid close to gelation are studied by means of computer simulations. A clear distinction between some fast particles and the rest, slow ones, is observed, yielding a picture of the gel composed by…