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In this review, we address the issue of the electrostatic complexation between charged-neutral diblock copolymers and oppositely charged nanocolloids. We show that nanocolloids such as surfactant micelles and iron oxide magnetic…
Photonic metamaterials with properties unattainable in base materials are already beginning to revolutionize optical component design. However, their exceptional characteristics are often static, as artificially engineered into the material…
The self-assembly of nanocrystals enables new classes of materials whose properties are controlled by the periodicities of the assembly, as well as by the size, shape and composition of the nanocrystals. While self-assembly of spherical…
Cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) self-assemble into cholesteric liquid crystals that produce structural color upon solvent removal. Although most studies examine this process in planar films, confinement within micron-sized water-in-oil…
The directed self-assembly of colloidal nanoparticles (NPs) using external fields guides the formation of sophisticated hierarchical materials but becomes less effective with decreasing particle size. As an alternative, electron-beam-driven…
Ionic liquid crystals (ILCs) are anisotropic mesogenic molecules which additionally carry charges. This combination gives rise to a complex interplay of the underlying (anisotropic) contributions to the pair interactions. It promises…
Understanding nanoscale mechanisms responsible for the recently discovered ferroelectric nematics can be helped by direct visualization of self-assembly of strongly polar molecules. Here we report on scanning tunneling microscopy (STM)…
Pattern formation induced by wrinkling is a very common phenomenon exhibited in soft-matter substrates. In all these systems wrinkles develop in presence of compressively stressed thin films lying on compliant substrates. Here we…
The ordering of nanoparticles into predetermined configurations is of importance to the design of advanced technologies. In this work, we moderate the surface anchoring against the bulk elasticity of liquid crystals to dynamically shape…
Aggregation processes in systems of planar macromolecules and colloids drive a broad range of phenomena in natural systems and soft materials. Depending on chemical architecture, intermolecular interactions in these systems may favor…
Nanodiscs are binary discoidal complexes of a phospholipid bilayer circumscribed by belt-like helical scaffold proteins. Using coarse-grained and all-atom molecular dynamics simulations, we explore the stability, size, and structure of…
Concentrated colloidal suspensions of nanorods often exhibit liquid-crystalline (LC) behavior. The transition to a nematic LC phase, with long-range orientational order of the particles, is usually well captured by Onsager's theory for hard…
We examine the organization and dynamics of binary colloidal monolayers composed of micron-scale silica particles interspersed with smaller-diameter silica particles that serve as minority component impurities. These binary monolayers are…
Lyotropic liquid crystals can display rich phase behaviour and self-organisation, yet the physical principles underlying their self-assembly into large scale patterns remains understudied. Here, we combine theory, simulations and…
Dihedral ('$k$-atic') liquid crystals (DLCs) are assemblies of microscopic constituent particles that exhibit $k$-fold discrete rotational and reflection symmetries. Generalizing the half-integer defects in nematic liquid crystals,…
Recently, the gapless Dirac/Weyl nodal semimetals with linear dispersion and topologically protected modes degeneracy are rapidly growing frontiers of topological physics. Especially, type-I, type-II, and critical type-III nodal semimetals…
Self-assembly of nanoparticles is an important tool in nanotechnology, with numerous applications including thin films, electronics, and drug delivery. We study the deposition of ionic nanoparticles on a glass substrate both experimentally…
Ionic liquids are promising candidates for electrolytes in energy-storage systems. We demonstrate that mixing two ionic liquids allows to precisely tune their physical properties, like the dc conductivity. Moreover, these mixtures enable…
Nematic and columnar phases of lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals (LCLCs) have been long studied for their fundamental and applied prospects in material science and medical diagnostics. LCLC phases represent different self-assembled states…
The controlled self-assembly of thiol stabilized gold nanocrystals in a mediating solvent and confined within mesoporous alumina was probed in situ with small angle x-ray scattering. The evolution of the self-assembly process was controlled…