Related papers: Programming patchy particles to form complex perio…
Direct design of complex functional materials would revolutionize technologies ranging from printable organs to novel clean energy devices. However, even incremental steps towards designing functional materials have proven challenging. If…
One of the fundamental goals of nanotechnology is to exploit selective and directional interactions between molecules to design particles that self-assemble into desired structures, from capsids, to nano-clusters, to fully formed crystals…
Model patchy particles have been shown to be able to form a wide variety of structures, including symmetric clusters, complex crystals and even two-dimensional quasicrystals. Here, we investigate whether we can design patchy particles that…
Patchy particles have proven to be a prominent model for studying the self-assembly behavior of various systems, ranging from finite clusters to bulk crystal assemblies, and from synthetic colloidal particles to viruses. The patchy particle…
The rapid progress in precisely designing the surface decoration of patchy colloidal particles offers a new, yet unexperienced freedom to create building entities for larger, more complex structures in soft matter systems. However, it is…
Nanoparticles with "sticky patches" have long been proposed as building blocks for the self-assembly of complex structures. The synthetic realizability of such patchy particles, however, greatly lags behind predictions of patterns they…
Designing particles that are able to form icosahedral quasicrystals (IQCs) and that are as simple as possible is not only of fundamental interest but is also important to the potential realization of IQCs in materials other than metallic…
Throughout the physical sciences, entropy stands out as a pivotal but enigmatic concept that, in materials design, often takes a backseat to energy. Here, we demonstrate how to precisely engineer entropy to achieve desired colloidal…
We explore the use of templated self-assembly to facilitate the formation of complex target structures made from patchy particles. First, we consider the templating of high-symmetry shell structures around a spherical core particle. We find…
We propose an optimisation method for the inverse structural design of self-assembly of anisotropic patchy particles. The anisotropic interaction can be expressed by the spherical harmonics of the surface pattern on a patchy particle, and…
A major goal in nanoscience and nanotechnology is the self-assembly of any desired complex structure with a system of particles interacting through simple potentials. To achieve this objective, intense experimental and theoretical efforts…
Patchy particles are a popular paradigm for the design and synthesis of nanoparticles and colloids for self-assembly. In "traditional" patchy particles, anisotropic interactions arising from patterned coatings, functionalized molecules,…
We devise an ideal 3-dimensional octagonal quasicrystal that is based upon the 2-dimensional Ammann-Beenker tiling and that is potentially suitable for realization with patchy particles. Based on an analysis of its local environments we…
We study the ordered equilibrium structures of patchy particles where the patches are located on the surface of the colloid such that they form a regular tetrahedron. Using optimization techniques based on ideas of evolutionary algorithms…
We computed the phase diagram for a system of model anisotropic particles with six attractive patches in an octahedral arrangement. We chose to study this model for a relatively narrow value of the patch width where the lowest-energy…
The behavior of identical particles interacting through the harmonic-repulsive pair potential has been studied in 3D using molecular dynamics simulations at a number of different densities. We found that at many densities, as the…
We systematically study the design of simple patchy sphere models that reversibly self-assemble into monodisperse icosahedral clusters. We find that the optimal patch width is a compromise between structural specificity (the patches must be…
We investigate the structural and thermodynamic properties of a model of particles with $2$ patches of type $A$ and $10$ patches of type $B$. Particles are placed on the sites of a face centered cubic lattice with the patches oriented along…
Entropy alone can self-assemble hard particles into colloidal crystals of remarkable complexity whose structures are the same as atomic and molecular crystals, but with larger lattice spacings. Although particle-based molecular simulation…
Curved structures in soft matter and biological systems commonly emerge as a result of self-assembly processes where building blocks aggregate in a controlled manner, giving rise to specific system structure and properties. Learning how to…