Related papers: Soft colloids for complex interfacial assemblies
The complex physics of self-assembly in colloidal crystals on deformable interfaces and surfaces poses interesting possibilities for the designability and synthesis of next-generation metamaterials. The goal of this article is to…
We introduce a model system of anisotropic colloidal `rocks'. Due to their shape, the bonding introduced via non-absorbing polymers is profoundly different from spherical particles: bonds between rocks are rigid against rotation, leading to…
The adsorption of polymer and surfactant molecules onto colloidal particles or droplets in solution can be characterized non-destructively by scattering techniques. In a first part, the general framework of Dynamic Light Scattering, Small…
Nature is remarkably adept at using interfaces to build structures, encapsulate reagents, and regulate biological processes. Inspired by Nature, we describe flexible polymer-based ribbons, termed "mesoscale polymers" (MSPs), to modulate…
If particles interact according to isotropic pair potentials that favor multiple length scales, in principle a large variety of different complex structures can be achieved by self-assembly. We present, motivate, and discuss a conjecture…
Soft materials can self-assemble into highly structured phases which replicate at the mesoscopic scale the symmetry of atomic crystals. As such, they offer an unparalleled platform to design mesostructured materials for light and sound.…
Self-assembled monolayers of microparticles encoding Archimedean and non-regular tessellations promise unprecedented structure-property relationships for a wide spectrum of applications in fields ranging from optoelectronics to surface…
Active fluids generate spontaneous, often chaotic mesoscale flows. Harnessing these flows to drive embedded soft materials into structures with controlled length scales and lifetimes is a key challenge at the interface between the fields of…
Combining topology and plasmonics paradigms in nanocolloidal systems may enable new means of pre-engineering desired composite material properties. Here we design and realize orientationally ordered assemblies of noble metal nanoparticles…
Colloidal lithography has emerged as a promising alternative to conventional nanofabrication techniques, offering the ability to create nanoscale patterns in a cost-effective and scalable manner. However, it has been so far limited by…
Active matter exhibits striking behaviour reminiscent of living matter and molecular fluids, and has promising applications in drug delivery or mixing at the micron scale. Active colloidal systems provide important models with simple and…
The microscopic structure of several amorphous substances often reveals complex patterns such as medium- or long-range order, spatial heterogeneity, and even local polycrystallinity. To capture all these features, models usually incorporate…
Multicomponent gel systems have garnered much interest due to their compelling mechanical properties in the past decade. Yet, some mechanisms associated with multicomponent gels, such as sequential gelation, have been explored primarily in…
Colloidal particles with appropriate wetting properties can become very strongly trapped at an interface between two immiscible fluids. We have harnessed this phenomenon to create a new class of soft materials with intriguing and…
The connection between fundamental interactions acting in molecules in a fluid and macroscopically measured properties, such as the viscosity between colloidal particles coated with polymers, is studied here. The role that hydrodynamic and…
Large-scale Monte Carlo simulations of a phase-separating colloid-polymer mixture are performed and compared to recent experiments. The approach is based on effective interaction potentials in which the central monomers of self-avoiding…
Biological systems exploit self-assembly to create complex structures whose arrangements are finely controlled from molecular to mesoscopic level. Herein we report an example of using fully synthetic systems that mimic two levels of…
While colloids are promising building blocks for the self-assembly of materials with novel microstructures, their numerous tunable parameters inhibit brute force searching for appropriate parameter combinations that yield self-assembly of a…
The fabrication of versatile building blocks that are reliably self-assemble into desired ordered and disordered phases is amongst the hottest topics in contemporary material science. To this end, microscopic units of varying complexity,…
Soft solids and their surface deformations control the response of many natural and artificial systems. Yet, their underlying properties are vigorously debated, particularly for polymer networks. While molecular-scale theories predict no…