Related papers: Self-assembly in soft matter with multiple length …
Chemical surfactants are omnipresent in consumers' products but they suffer from environmental concerns. For this reason, complete replacement of petrochemical surfactants by biosurfactants constitute a holy grail but this is far from…
Biomolecular structures are assemblies of emergent anisotropic building modules such as uniaxial helices or biaxial strands. We provide an approach to understanding a marginally compact phase of matter that is occupied by proteins and DNA.…
Hierarchically structured natural materials possess functionalities unattainable to the same components organized or mixed in simpler ways. For instance, the bones and teeth of mammals are far stronger and more durable than the mineral…
We study theoretically in the present work the self-assembly of molecules in an open system, which is fed by monomers and depleted in partial or complete clusters. Such a scenario is likely to occur for example in the context of viral…
We present a quantitative measure of physical complexity, based on the amount of information required to build a given physical structure through self-assembly. Our procedure can be adapted to any given geometry, and thus to any given type…
Multifarious assembly models consider multiple structures assembled from a shared set of components, reflecting the efficient usage of components in biological self-assembly. These models are subject to a high-dimensional parameter space,…
The functioning of machines typically requires a concerted action of their parts. This requirement also holds for molecular motors that drive vital cellular processes and imposes constraints on their conformational changes as well as the…
The rapid collapse of a polymer, due to external forces or changes in solvent, yields a long-lived `crumpled globule.' The conjectured fractal structure shaped by hierarchical collapse dynamics has proved difficult to establish, even with…
We present a combined experimental and theoretical study on the role of copolymer architecture in the self-assembly of binary PEO-PCL mixtures in water-THF, and show that altering the chain geometry and composition of the copolymers can…
Biomolecular condensates are liquid- or gel-like droplets of proteins and nucleic acids formed at least in part through liquid-liquid phase separation. Condensates enable diverse functions of cells and the pathogens that infect them,…
Phase separation in passive systems leads to uncontrolled droplet growth, limiting structural control in soft materials and cells. We identify a generic mechanism to arrest coarsening based on chemical interconversion between molecular…
We report on the formation of colloidal complexes resulting from the electrostatic self-assembly of polyelectrolyte-neutral block copolymers and oppositely charged surfactants. The copolymers investigated are asymmetric and characterized by…
We present a hybrid simulation method which allows one to study the dynamical evolution of self-assembling (co)polymer solutions in the presence of hydrodynamic interactions. The method combines an established dynamic density functional…
We consider a lattice model for amphiphiles in a solvent with molecules chemically similar to one part of the amphiphilic molecule. The dependence of the interaction potential on orientation of the amphiphilic molecules is taken into…
The cytoplasm is a heterogeneous mixture containing many types of proteins that self-assemble into a wide variety of complexes. The accuracy and speed of cytoplasmic self-assembly is astonishing because it involves the correct…
Self-assembly processes are widespread in nature, and lie at the heart of many biological and physical phenomena. The characteristics of self-assembly building blocks determine the structures that they form. Two crucial properties are the…
Modeling the spontaneous evolution of morphology in natural systems and its preservation by proportionate growth remains a major scientific challenge. Yet, it is conceivable that if the basic mechanisms of growth and the coupled kinetic…
The efficient and controlled assembly of complex structures from macromolecular building blocks is a critical open question in both biological systems and nanoscience. Using molecular dynamics simulations we study the self-assembly of…
A mesoscopic coarse-grain model for computationally-efficient simulations of biomembranes is presented. It combines molecular dynamics simulations for the lipids, modeled as elastic chains of beads, with multiparticle collision dynamics for…
In this work we seek to understand some of the fundamental processes that govern self-assembly at the nanoscale in the context of the formation of metallic structures on patterned co-polymer templates. To this end we focus on the…