Related papers: Design strategies for the self-assembly of polyhed…
Geometric frustration offers a pathway to soft matter self-assembly with controllable finite sizes. While the understanding of frustration in soft matter assembly derives almost exclusively from continuum elastic descriptions, a current…
The efficient and controlled assembly of complex structures from macromolecular building blocks is a critical open question in both biological systems and nanoscience. Using molecular dynamics simulations we study the self-assembly of…
During the last 3 years, our group has investigated extensively the complexation mechanism between neutral-polyelectrolyte block copolymers with oppositely charged species. These species are surfactant micelles, multivalent counterions and…
Geometric frustration is a fundamental concept in various areas of physics, and its role in self-assembly processes has recently been recognized as a source of intricate self-limited structures. Here we present an analytic theory of the…
The ability to design and synthesize ever more complicated colloidal particles opens the possibility of self-assembling a zoo of complex structures, including those with one or more self-limited length scales. An undesirable feature of…
At the cutting edge of materials science, matter is designed to self-organize into structures that perform a wide range of functions. The past two decades have witnessed major innovations in the versatility of building blocks, ranging from…
Multilevel self-assembly involving small structured groups of nano-particles provides new routes to development of functional materials with a sophisticated architecture. Apart from the inter-particle forces, the geometrical shapes and…
Spherical particles confined to a sphere surface cannot pack densely into a hexagonal lattice without defects. In this study, we use hard particle Monte Carlo simulations to determine the effects of continuously deformable shape anisotropy…
In this paper, we introduce the following problem in the theory of algorithmic self-assembly: given an input shape as the seed of a tile-based self-assembly system, design a finite tile set that can, in some sense, uniquely identify whether…
Manipulating the way in which colloidal particles self-organise is a central challenge in the design of functional soft materials. Meeting this challenge requires the use of building blocks that interact with one another in a highly…
We show that chiral symmetry can be broken spontaneously in one-component systems with isotropic interactions, i.e. many-particle systems having maximal a priori symmetry. This is achieved by designing isotropic potentials that lead to…
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…
Entropic self-assembly is governed by the shape of the constituent particles, yet a priori prediction of crystal structures from particle shape alone is non-trivial for anything but the simplest of space-filling shapes. At the same time,…
From dumbbells to FCC crystals, we study the self-assembly pathway of amphiphatic, spherical colloidal particles as a function of the size of the hydrophobic region using molecular dynamics simulations. Specifically, we analyze how local…
This article reviews recent inverse statistical-mechanical methodologies that we have devised to optimize interaction potentials in soft matter systems that correspond to stable "target" structures. We are interested in finding the…
Self-assembly is one of the most promising strategies for making functional materials at the nanoscale, yet new design principles for making self-limiting architectures, rather than spatially unlimited periodic lattice structures, are…
We report canonical and grand-canonical lattice Monte Carlo simulations of the self-assembly of addressable structures comprising hundreds of distinct component types. The nucleation behaviour, in the form of free-energy barriers to…
A critical step in tissue engineering is the design and synthesis of 3D biocompatible matrices (scaffolds) to support and guide the proliferation of cells and tissue growth. Most existing techniques rely on the processing of scaffolds under…
Spontaneous self-assembly in molecular systems is a fundamental route to both biological and engineered soft matter. Simple micellisation, emulsion formation, and polymer mixing principles are well understood. However, the principles behind…
Colloidal particles are considered ideal building blocks to produce materials with enhanced physical properties. The state-of-the-art techniques for synthesizing these particles provide control over shape, size, and directionality of the…