Related papers: Assembling Inorganic Nanocrystal Gels
Attractive colloidal dispersions, suspensions of fine particles which aggregate and frequently form a space spanning elastic gel are ubiquitous materials in society with a wide range of applications. The colloidal networks in these…
Filler-induced strengthening is ubiquitous in materials science and is particularly well-established in polymeric nanocomposites. Despite having similar constituents, colloidal gels with solid filling exhibit distinct rheology, which is of…
We study a microscopically realistic model of a physical gel and use computer simulations to investigate its static and dynamic properties at thermal equilibrium. The phase diagram comprises a sol phase, a coexistence region ending at a…
The proper design of DNA sequences allows for the formation of well defined supramolecular units with controlled interactions via a consecution of self-assembling processes. Here, we benefit from the controlled DNA self-assembly to…
Colloidal molecules are designed to mimic their molecular analogues through their anisotropic shape and interactions. However, current experimental realizations are missing the structural flexibility present in real molecules thereby…
The postulate of the existence of a jamming phase diagram (Liu and Nagel, Nature 396, 21 EP (1998aa)) provides a theoretical basis for the classification of a wide range of amorphous solids (colloidal, molecular and emulsion glasses,…
Attractive colloidal particles can form a disordered elastic solid or gel when quenched into a two-phase region, if the volume fraction is sufficiently large. When the interactions are comparable to thermal energies the stress-bearing…
We explore the conditions under which colloids can be stabilized by the addition of smaller particles. The largest repulsive barriers between colloids occur when the added particles repel each other with soft interactions, leading to an…
Micro- and nanogels are widely used to stabilise emulsions and simultaneously implement their responsiveness to the external stimuli. One of the factors that improves the emulsion stability is the nanogel softness. Here, we study how the…
We present a numerical study on geometric percolation in liquid dispersions of hard slender colloidal particles subjected to an external orienting field. In the formulation and liquid-state processing of nanocomposite materials, the…
In order to make a densely packed assembly of undoped semiconductor nanocrystals conductive, it is usually gated by a room temperature ionic liquid. The ionic liquid enters the pores of the super-crystal assembly under the influence of an…
Catalytically active colloids maintain non-equilibrium conditions in which they produce and deplete chemicals and hence effectively act as sources and sinks of molecules. While individual colloids that are symmetrically coated do not…
The self-assembly of anisotropic building blocks into complex spatial architectures is an important design strategy in material science but the mechanisms by which the anisotropic interactions influence the early-stage growth and formation…
In recent years significant attention has been attracted to proposals which utilize DNA for nanotechnological applications. Potential applications of these ideas range from the programmable self-assembly of colloidal crystals, to biosensors…
We demonstrate a novel method to assemble and transport swarms of colloidal particles by combining liquid crystals enabled electrophoresis and photo-sensitive surface patterning. Colloidal particles are propelled in a nematic liquid crystal…
Using computer simulations, we identify the mechanisms causing aggregation and structural arrest of colloidal suspensions interacting with a short-ranged attraction at moderate and high densities. Two different non-ergodicity transitions…
Identifying the necessary conditions for the onset of rigidity in a gel remains a challenge. It has been suggested that local particle coordination could be used to establish such conditions, but rigid gels occur for various coordination…
We assemble charged colloidal spheres at deliberately chosen locations on a charged unstructured glass substrate utilizing ion exchange based electro-osmotic micro-pumps. Using microscopy, a simple scaling theory and Brownian Dynamics…
Self-assembly of colloidal particles due to elastic interactions in nematic liquid crystals promises tunable composite materials and can be guided by exploiting surface functionalization, geometric shape and topology, though these means of…
We investigate the collective behavior of suspended thermoresponsive microgels, that expel solvent and subsequently decrease in size upon heating. Using a binary mixture of differently thermoresponsive microgels, we demonstrate how…