Related papers: Designing patchy interactions to self-assemble arb…
Experiments have reached a monumental capacity for designing and synthesizing microscopic particles for self-assembly, making it possible to precisely control particle concentrations, shapes, and interactions. However, more physical insight…
Patchy colloids are promising candidates for building blocks in directed self-assembly. To be successful the surface patterns need to both be simple enough to be synthesized, while feature-rich enough to cause the colloids to self-assemble…
One of the challenges of self-assembling finite-sized colloidal aggregates with a sought morphology is the necessity of precisely sorting the position of the colloids at the microscopic scale to avoid the formation of off-target structures.…
A cornerstone of advanced materials design is establishing a framework for assembling nanoparticle superstructures with tailored symmetries. A longstanding challenge has been assembling diamond-like superstructures for photonic devices.…
Quantum technologies aim to assemble devices whose operation is controlled by the quantum state of individual atoms. Achieving this level of control in a practical, scalable design remains, however, a major obstacle to mass societal…
Inverse design can be a useful strategy for discovering interactions that drive particles to spontaneously self-assemble into a desired structure. Here, we extend an inverse design methodology--relative entropy optimization--to determine…
Milled nanodiamonds containing nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers provide an excellent platform for sensing applications as they are optically robust, have nanoscale quantum sensitivity, and form colloidal dispersions which enable bottom-up…
Functional nanoparticles (NPs) have gained significant attention as a promising application in various fields, including sensor, smart coating, drug delivery, and more. Here, we propose a novel mechanism assisted by machine-learning…
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…
Inverse patchy colloids are nano- to micro-scale particles with a surface divided into differently charged regions. This class of colloids combines directional, selective bonding with a relatively simple particle design: owing to the…
We examine nanoparticles (NPs) forming polyhedral sections of the ideal cubic lattice, simple (sc), body centered (bcc), and face centered (fcc) cubic, which are confined by facets characterized by densest and second densest {h k l}…
The ordering of nanoparticles into predetermined configurations is of importance to the design of advanced technologies. In this work, we moderate the surface anchoring against the bulk elasticity of liquid crystals to dynamically shape…
The design space for a self-assembled multicomponent objects ranges from a solution in which every building block is unique to one with the minimum number of distinct building blocks that unambiguously define the target structure. Using a…
One of the frontiers of nanotechnology is advancing beyond the periodic self-assembly of materials. Icosahedral quasicrystals, aperiodic in all directions, represent one of the most challenging targets that have yet to be experimentally…
We propose a new strategy for robust high-quality self-assembly of non-trivial periodic structures out of patchy particles, and investigate it with Brownian Dynamics (BD) simulations. Its first element is the use of specific patch-patch and…
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,…
Polymer-grafted nanoparticles are versatile building blocks that self-assemble into a rich diversity of mesostructures. Coarse-grained molecular simulations have commonly accompanied experiments by resolving structure formation pathways and…
We study theoretically a new generic scheme of programmable self-assembly of nanoparticles into clusters of desired geometry. The problem is motivated by the feasibility of highly selective DNA-mediated interactions between colloidal…
Self-assembly is one of the prevalent strategies used by living systems to fabricate ensembles of precision nanometer-scale structures and devices. The push for analogous approaches to create synthetic nanomaterials has led to the…
The ability to control forces between sub-micron-scale building blocks offers considerable potential for designing new materials through self-assembly. A typical paradigm is to first identify a particular (crystal) structure that has some…