Related papers: Designing Surface Charge Patterns for Shape Contro…
Shape is an important feature of physical systems although very seldom it is addressed in the framework of a quantitative description approach. In this paper we propose to interpret the shape of things as a physical manifestation of the…
We consider a mixture of one neutral and two oppositely charged types of molecules confined to a surface. Using analytical techniques and molecular dynamics simulations, we construct the phase diagram of the system and exhibit the…
Shape anisotropy of colloidal nanoparticles has emerged as an important design variable for engineering assemblies with targeted structure and properties. In particular, a number of polyhedral nanoparticles have been shown to exhibit a rich…
Topological defects, such as disclination lines in nematic liquid crystals, are fundamental to many physical systems and applications. In this work, we study the behavior of nematic disclinations in thin parallel-plate geometries with…
Both the shape of individual particles and their surface properties contribute to the strength of a granular material under shear. Here we show the degree to which these two aspects can be intertwined. In experiments on assemblies of 3D…
The reconfiguration of soft, deformable particles upon adsorption at the interface between two fluids underpins many aspects of their dynamics and interactions, ultimately controlling the macroscopic properties of particle monolayers of…
Electrostatic interactions fundamentally govern the structure, stability, and dynamics of charged (bio)matter, yet the impact of heterogeneous and anisotropic charge distributions on the behavior of protein solutions remains elusive. Here,…
We investigate a counterintuitive geometric interaction between defects and curvature in thin layers of superfluids, superconductors and liquid crystals deposited on curved surfaces. Each defect feels a geometric potential whose functional…
Nanoparticles with different surface morphologies that straddle the interface between two immiscible liquids are studied via molecular dynamics simulations. The methodology employed allows us to compute the interfacial free energy at…
Anisotropic fluids, such as nematic liquid crystals, can form non-spherical equilibrium shapes known as tactoids. Predicting the shape of these structures as a function of material parameters is challenging and paradigmatic of a broader…
We explore the shape and internal structure of diblock copolymer (di-BCP) nanoparticles (NPs) by using the Ginzburg-Landau free-energy expansion. The self-assembly of di-BCP lamellae confined in emulsion droplets can form either ellipsoidal…
In this study, the deformation of nylon6/silica nanocomposite is investigated by employing a multiscale computational approach to understand the influence of nanoparticles. Initially, the upper and lower bounds for the elastic properties of…
We reveal the assembly of monodisperse magnetite nanoparticles of sizes 5 nm, 15 nm and 25 nm from dilute water-based ferrofluids onto an amorphous magnetic template with out-of-plane anisotropy. From neutron reflectometry experiments we…
Elastic capsules, prepared from droplets or bubbles attached to a capillary (as in a pendant drop tensiometer), can be deflated by suction through the capillary. We study this deflation and show that a combined analysis of the shape and…
Neutral or charged polymers that are densely end-grafted to surfaces form brush-like structures and are highly stretched under good-solvent conditions. We discuss and compare relevant results from scaling models, self-consistent-field…
Properties of plasmonic materials are associated with surface plasmons - the electromagnetic excitations coupled to coherent electron charge density oscillations on a metal/dielectric interface. Although decay of such oscillations cannot be…
The ability to artificially grow in a controllable manner at nanoscale, from modern deposition techniques, complex structural configurations made with metallic, polar and semiconductors materials raises today the issue of the "best"…
The ability to control electromagnetic fields on the subwavelength scale could open exciting new venues in many fields of science. Transformation optics provides one way to attain such control through the local variation of the permittivity…
Physical geometry and optical properties of objects are correlated: cylinders focus light to a line, spheres to a point, and arbitrarily shaped objects introduce optical aberrations. Multi-functional components with decoupled geometrical…
Particles with directional interactions are promising building blocks for new functional materials and may serve as models for biological structures. Mutually attractive nanoparticles that are deformable due to flexible surface groups, for…