Related papers: Shape and Interaction Decoupling for Colloidal Pre…

Hierarchical granular piles composed of aggregates are key structural features in both geoscience and planetary science, from fault gouge in seismic zones to the internal structures of comets. Although experimental studies have suggested a…

Cholesteric liquid crystals can exhibit spatial patterns in molecular alignment at interfaces that can be exploited for particle assembly. These patterns emerge from the competition between bulk and surface energies, tunable with the system…

We study the phase behavior of hard spheres confined between two parallel hard plates using extensive computer simulations. We determine the full equilibrium phase diagram for arbitrary densities and plate separations from one to five…

Formation of highly ordered structures usually needs to overcome a high free-energy barrier that is greatly beyond the ability of thermodynamic fluctuation, such that the system would be easily trapped into a state with many defects and the…

We investigate effective interactions between a colloidal particle, immersed in a binary mixture of smaller spheres, and a semipermeable membrane. The colloid is modeled as a big hard sphere and the membrane is represented as an infinitely…

Nanocomposite materials made of block copolymer and nanoparticles display properties which can be different from the purely polymeric matrix. The resulting material is a crossover of the original properties of the block copolymer and the…

Active colloids belong to a class of non-equilibrium systems where energy uptake, conversion and dissipation occurs at the level of individual colloidal particles, which can lead to particles self-propelled motion and surprising collective…

For a three dimensional system we answer two questions, how simple a particle system might be to show the quasicrystal order and, what system features are the most important for quasicrystal formation? One-component system of particles with…

We study mutual alignment and interactions between colloidal particles of dissimilar shapes and dimensions when dispersed in a nematic host fluid. Convex pentagonal and concave starfruit-shaped nanoprisms and microspheres induce dipolar or…

We present a series of experiments investigating the local microstructure of cylindrical piles composed of highly concave particles. By systematically varying particle geometry -- from spheres to strongly non-convex polypods -- as well as…

The spontaneous assembly of particles in suspension provides a strategy for inexpensive fabrication of devices with nanometer-scale control, such as single-electron transistors for memory or logic applications. A scaleable and robust method…

Colloidal interactions in nematic liquid crystals can be described as interactions between elastic multipoles that depend on particle shape, topology, chirality, boundary conditions and induced topological defects. Here, we describe a…

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…

Material electromagnetic duality symmetry requires a system to have equal electric and magnetic responses. Electromagnetic duality enables technologically important effects like artificial optical activity and zero back-scattering, is a…

This mini-review discusses the recent contribution of theoretical and computational physics as well as experimental efforts to the understanding of the behavior of colloidal particles in confined geometries and at liquid crystalline…

Capillarity-driven self-assembly at fluidic interfaces offers a scalable route to large, reconfigurable materials. Microscale particles with high horizontal-to-vertical aspect ratios become attractive building blocks for shape-directed…

The interplay between shape anisotropy and directed long-range interactions enables the self-assembly of complex colloidal structures. As a recent highlight, ellipsoidal particles polarized in an external electric field were observed to…

Particle systems interacting with a soft repulsion, at thermal equilibrium and under some circumstances, are known to form cluster crystals, i.e. periodic arrangements of particle aggregates. We study here how these states are modified by…

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,…

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…