Related papers: Classical nucleation and growth of DNA-programmed …
Crystallization of supersaturated liquids usually starts by heterogeneous nucleation. Mounting evidence shows that even homogeneous nucleation in simple liquids takes place in two steps; first a dense amorphous precursor forms, and the…
We propose a unifying, analytical theory accounting for the self-organization of colloidal systems in nano- or micro-cluster phases. We predict the distribution of cluter sizes with respect to interaction parameters and colloid…
Viscoelastic phase separation of colloidal suspensions can be interrupted to form gels either by glass transition or by crystallization. With a new confocal microscopy protocol, we follow the entire kinetics of phase separation, from…
Transition metal dichalcogenides exhibit a wide range of semiconducting, metallic, correlated, and topological electronic states that arise from strong coupling between lattice structure, dimensionality, and electronic degrees of freedom.…
Crystal nucleation and growth processes induced by an externally applied shear strain in a model metallic glass are studied by means of nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations, in a range of temperatures. We observe that the…
Despite numerous efforts from numerical approaches to complement experimental measurements, several fundamental challenges have still hindered one's ability to truly provide an atomistic picture of the nucleation process in nanocrystals.…
Crystallization is a fundamental process in materials science, providing the primary route for the realization of a wide range of new materials. Crystallization rates are also considered to be useful probes of glass-forming ability. At the…
As computers get faster, researchers -- not hardware or algorithms -- become the bottleneck in scientific discovery. Computational study of colloidal self-assembly is one area that is keenly affected: even after computers generate massive…
Nanoparticles tethered with DNA strands are promising building blocks for bottom-up nanotechnology, and a theoretical understanding is important for future development. Here we build on approaches developed in polymer physics to provide…
In many biopolymer solutions, attractive interactions that stabilize finite-sized clusters at low concentrations also promote phase separation at high concentrations. Here we study a model biopolymer system that exhibits the opposite…
We report numerical investigations of a three-dimensional model of diffusive growth of fine particles, the internal structure of which corresponds to different crystal lattices. A growing cluster (particle) is immersed in, and exchanges…
Branched junction molecule assembly of DNA nanostructures, pioneered by Seeman's laboratory in the 1980s, has become increasingly sophisticated, as have the assembly targets. A critical design step is finding minimal sets of branched…
We apply a simple dynamical density functional theory, the phase-field-crystal (PFC) model, to describe homogeneous and heterogeneous crystal nucleation in 2d monodisperse colloidal systems and crystal nucleation in highly compressed Fe…
A full understanding of polycrystalline materials requires studying the process of nucleation, a thermally activated phase transition that typically occurs at atomistic scales. The numerical modeling of this process is problematic for…
In this paper, we explore the feasibility of using coarse-grained models to simulate the self-assembly of DNA nanostructures. We introduce a simple model of DNA where each nucleotide is represented by two interaction sites corresponding to…
Most substances can crystallise into two or more different crystal lattices, called polymorphs. Despite this, there are no systems in which we can quantitatively predict the probability of one competing polymorph forming, instead of the…
We study the problem of the self-assembly of nanoparticles (NPs) into finite mesoscopic structures with a programmed local morphology and complex overall shape. Our proposed building blocks are NPs directionally-functionalized with DNA. The…
We review our recent modeling of crystal nucleation and polycrystalline growth using a phase field theory. First, we consider the applicability of phase field theory for describing crystal nucleation in a model hard sphere fluid. It is…
DNA nanotechnology promises to provide controllable self-assembly on the nanoscale, allowing for the design of static structures, dynamic machines and computational architectures. In this article I review the state-of-the art of DNA…
Designing and fabricating self-assembled open colloidal crystals have become one major direction in soft matter community because of many promising applications associated with open colloidal crystals. However, most of the self-assembled…