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Nanoporous media exhibit structures significantly smaller than the wavelengths of visible light and can thus act as photonic metamaterials. Their optical functionality is not determined by the properties of the base materials, but rather by…
Acid-induced release of stored ions from polyacrylic acid hydrogels (with a free surface fully permeable to the ion and acid flux) was observed to increase the gel osmotic pressure that leads to rapid, temporary swelling faster than the…
Self-assembly processes allow us to design and create complex nanostructures using molecules as building blocks and surfaces as scaffolds. This autonomous driven construction is possible due to a complex thermodynamic balance of…
Chiral crystals consisting of micro-helices have many optical properties while presently available fabrication processes limit their large-scale applications in photonic devices. Here, by using a simplified simulation method, we investigate…
We investigate coarse-grained models of suspended self-thermophoretic microswimmers. Upon heating, the Janus spheres, with hemispheres made of different materials, induce a heterogeneous local solvent temperature that causes the…
Dielectric environment engineering is an efficient and general approach to manipulating polaritons. Liquids serving as surrounding media of polaritons have been used to shift polariton dispersions and tailor polariton wavefronts. However,…
We study fluid-induced deformation and fracture of cohesive granular media, and apply photoporomechanics to uncover the underpinning grain-scale mechanics. We fabricate photoelastic spherical particles of diameter d=2mm, and make a…
Fabrication of highly ordered and dense nanofibers assemblies is of key importance in designing high-performance and multi-functional materials. In this work, we design an experimental approach in silico, combining shear flow and solvent…
Oscillations of flagella and cilia play an important role in biology, which motivates the idea of functional mimicry as part of bio-inspired applications. Nevertheless, it still remains challenging to drive their artificial counterparts to…
Assembly of colloidal particles on fluid interfaces is a promising technique for synthesizing two-dimensional micro-crystalline materials useful in fields as diverse as biomedicine1, materials science2, mineral flotation3 and food…
The use of colloidal supported lipid bilayers (CSLBs) has recently been extended to create colloidal joints, that - in analogy to their macroscopic counterparts - can flexibly connect colloidal particles. These novel elements enable the…
Complex colloidal cluster morphologies are desirable for the fabrication of advanced materials, such as photonic crystals and meta-materials, and can be formed through evaporation-driven packing. By coupling lattice Boltzmann and discrete…
In this review we discuss recent advances in the self-assembly of self-propelled colloidal particles and highlight some of the most exciting results in this field with a specific focus on dry active matter. We explore this phenomenology…
A continuing challenge in material science is how to create active materials in which shape changes or displacements can be generated electrically or thermally. Here we borrow principles from hydraulics, in particular that confined…
We study the self-assembly of magnetic colloids using the Stockmayer (SM) model characterized by short-range Lennard-Jones interactions and long-range dipole-dipole interactions. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we design cooling…
Active systems contain self-propelled particles and can spontaneously self-organize into patterns making them attractive candidates for the self-assembly of smart soft materials. One key limitation of our present understanding of these…
To explore and react to their environment, living micro-swimmers have developed sophisticated strategies for locomotion - in particular, motility with multiple gaits. To understand the physical principles associated with such a behavioural…
Cell spheroids are in vitro multicellular model systems that mimic the crowded micro-environment of biological tissues. Their mechanical characterization can provide valuable insights in how single-cell mechanics and cell-cell interactions…
Hybrid photonic integration exploits complementary strengths of different material platforms, thereby offering superior performance and design flexibility in comparison to monolithic approaches. This applies in particular to multi-chip…
An artificial microswimmer drifts in response to spatio-temporal modulations of an activating suspension medium. We consider two competing mechanisms capable of influencing its tactic response: angular fluctuations, which help it explore…