Related papers: Bistable colloidal orientation near a charged surf…
We show that in suitable anisotropic ferromagnets, both stable and metastable ``tilted'' phases occur, in which the magnetization ${\vec M}$ makes an angle between zero and $180$ degrees with the externally applied ${\vec H}$. Tuning either…
The electrostatic interaction between two non-identical, moderately charged colloids situated in close proximity of each other at a fluid interface is studied. By resorting to a well-justified model system, this problem is analytically…
We demonstrate a size sensitive experimental scheme which enables bidirectional transport and fractionation of paramagnetic colloids in a fluid medium. It is shown that two types of magnetic colloidal particles with different sizes can be…
We present a study on buckling of colloidal particles, including experimental, theoretical and numerical developments. Oil-filled thin shells prepared by emulsion templating show buckling in mixtures of water and ethanol, due to dissolution…
We consider orientation mechanisms for block copolymers in an electric field. Theoretical and experimental studies have shown that nonuniformity of the dielectric constant gives rise to a preferred orientation of the melt with respect to…
Colloidal cuboids have the potential to self-assemble into biaxial liquid crystal phases, which exhibit two independent optical axes. Over the last few decades, several theoretical works predicted the existence of a wide region of the phase…
Multistable structures are objects with more than one stable conformation, exemplified by the simple switch. Continuum versions are often elastic composite plates or shells, such as the common measuring tape or the slap bracelet, both of…
We simulate the dynamics of paramagnetic colloidal particles that are placed above a magnetic hexagonal pattern and exposed to an external field periodically changing its direction along a control loop. The conformation of three colloidal…
The interplay between shape anisotropy and directed long-range interactions enables the self-assembly of complex colloidal structures. As a recent highlight, ellipsoidal particles polarized in an external electric field were observed to…
Cholesteric liquid crystals can exhibit spatial patterns in molecular alignment at interfaces that can be exploited for particle assembly. These patterns emerge from the competition between bulk and surface energies, tunable with the system…
A variety of electrostatic phenomena, including the structure of electric double layers and the aggregation of charged colloids and proteins, are affected by nonuniform electric permittivity. These effects are frequently ignored in…
There is growing interest in functional, adaptive devices built from colloidal subunits of micron size or smaller. A colloidal material with dynamic mechanical properties could facilitate such microrobotic machines. Here we study via…
Cholesteric liquid crystals exhibit great morphological richness of static metastable states. Understanding the transitions between such states is key for the development of switchable devices. We show, using a quasi-one-dimensional model,…
Micropolar active matter requires for its kinematic description both positional and orientational degrees of freedom. Activity generates dynamic coupling between these kinematic variables that are absent in micropolar passive matter, such…
We study colloidal ordering and disordering on two-dimensional periodic substrates where the number of colloids per substrate minima is two or three. The colloids form dimer or trimer states with orientational ordering, referred to as…
We present results of molecular dynamics simulations for two-dimensional repulsively interacting colloids driven by a one dimensional asymmetric and commensurate ratchet potential, switching on and off stochastically. This drives a…
We study the effective screened electrostatic potential created by a spheroidal colloidal particle immersed in an electrolyte, within the mean field approximation, using Poisson--Botzmann equation in its linear and nonlinear forms, and also…
The effect of strong confinement on the positional and orientational ordering is examined in a system of hard rectangular rods with length L and diameter D (L>D) using the Parsons-Lee modification of the second virial density functional…
Surface properties of mixtures of charged platelike colloids and salt in contact with a charged planar wall are studied within density functional theory. The particles are modeled by hard cuboids with their edges constrained to be parallel…
Conformational isomers are stereoisomers that can interconvert over low potential barriers by rotation around a single bond. However, such bond rotation is hampered by geometrical constraints when molecules are adsorbed on surfaces. Here we…