Related papers: Flexible Colloidal Molecules with Directional Bond…
Understanding multibody interactions between colloidal particles out of equilibrium has a profound impact on dynamical processes such as colloidal self assembly. However, traditional colloidal interactions are effectively quasi-static on…
Control of physical behaviors of nematic colloids and colloidal crystals has been demonstrated by tuning particle shape, topology, chirality and surface charging. However, the capability of altering physical behaviors of such soft matter…
Colloidal gels are widely applied in industry due to their rheological character -- no flow takes place below the yield stress. Such property enables gels to maintain uniform distribution in practical formulations; otherwise, solid…
In many biological systems, the curvature of the surfaces cells live on influence their collective properties. Curvature should likewise influence the behavior of active colloidal particles. We show using molecular simulation of…
We experimentally demonstrate the emergence of directional rotation in thermally active-passive colloidal structures under optical confinement. The observed handedness of rotation of the structure can be controlled by changing the relative…
Colloidal particles can create reconfigurable nanomaterials, with applications such as color-changing, self-repairing, and self-regulating materials and reconfigurable drug delivery systems. However, top-down methods for manipulating…
Several laser techniques have been suggested and demonstrated recently for preparing polarizable molecules in rapidly spinning states with a disc-like angular distribution. We consider motion of these spinning discs in inhomogeneous fields,…
Colloidal gels constitute an important class of materials found in many contexts and with a wide range of applications. Yet as matter far from equilibrium, gels exhibit a variety of time-dependent behaviours, which can be perplexing, such…
Colloidal systems find important applications ranging from fabrication of photonic crystals to direct probing of phenomena typically encountered in atomic crystals and glasses. New applications - such as nanoantennas, plasmonic sensors, and…
Dispersed colloidal particles within a suspension can aggregate and spontaneously self-organize into a robust, percolating structure known as a gel. These network-like structures are prevalent in nature and play a critical role in many…
Understanding how colloidal suspensions behave in confined environments has a striking relevance in practical applications. Despite the fact that the behaviour of colloids in the bulk is key to identify the main elements affecting their…
In this letter, we characterize experimentally the diffusiophoretic motion of colloids and lambda- DNA toward higher concentration of solutes, using microfluidic technology to build spatially- and temporally-controlled concentration…
A simple model of an active colloid consisting of dumbbell-shaped particles that cyclically change their length without propelling themselves is proposed and analyzed. At nanoscales, it represents an idealization for bacterial cytoplasm or…
Artificial soft matter systems have appeared as important tools to harness mechanical motion for microscale manipulation. Typically, this motion is driven either by the external fields or by mutual interaction between the colloids. In the…
Using a coarse molecular-dynamics (CMD) approach with an appropriate choice of coarse variable (order parameter), we map the underlying effective free-energy landscape for the melting of a crystalline solid. Implementation of this approach…
Understanding the motion of particles with ligand-receptors is important for biomedical applications and material design. Yet, even among a single design, the prototypical DNA-coated colloids, seemingly similar micrometric particles hop or…
Self-assembly of colloidal particles is poised to become a powerful composite material fabrication technique, but remains challenged by a limited control over the ensuing structures. We develop a new breed of nematic colloids that are…
Combined-resolution simulations are an effective way to study molecular properties across a range of length- and time-scales. These simulations can benefit from adaptive boundaries that allow the high-resolution region to adapt (change size…
Molecules with versatile functionalities and well-defined structures, can serve as building blocks for extreme nanoscale devices. This requires their precise integration into functional heterojunctions, most commonly in the form of…
Colloidal particles with DNA `legs' that can bind reversibly to receptors on a surface can be made to `walk' if there is a gradient in receptor concentration. We use a combination of theory and Monte Carlo simulations to explore how…