Related papers: Ion-Mediated Structural Discontinuities in Phospho…
Piezo ion channels underlie many forms of mechanosensation in vertebrates, and have been found to bend the membrane into strongly curved dome shapes. We develop here a methodology describing the self-assembly of lipids and Piezo into…
Polypeptide-based diblock copolymers forming either well-defined self-assembled micelles or vesicles after direct dissolution in water or in dichloromethane, have been studied combining light and neutron scattering with electron microscopy…
Extreme deformation of soft matter is central to our understanding of the effects of shock, fracture, and phase change in a variety of systems. Yet, despite, the increasing interest in this area, far-from-equilibrium behaviours of soft…
We explore the self-assembly process of colloidal structures immersed in active baths. By considering low-valence particles we numerically investigate the irreversible aggregation dynamics originated by the presence of run-and-tumble…
In this review we discuss recent advances in the self-assembly of self-propelled colloidal particles and highlight some of the most exciting results in this field with a specific focus on dry active matter. We explore this phenomenology…
We show that a metastable multilamellar vesicle (`onion'), in contact with excess solvent, can spontaneously deplete solute molecules from its interior through an unusual, entropy-driven mechanism. Fluctuation entropy is gained as the…
In recent years, ionic microgels have garnered much attention due to their unique properties, especially their stimulus-sensitive swelling behavior. The tunable response of these soft, permeable, compressible, charged colloidal particles is…
Thanks to a constant energy input, active matter can self-assemble into phases with complex architectures and functionalities such as living clusters that dynamically form, reshape and break-up, which are forbidden in equilibrium materials…
Self-assembly of matter in solution generally relies on attractive interactions that overcome entropy and drive the formation of higher-order molecular and particulate structures. Such interactions play key roles in a variety of contexts,…
We study a dynamical curvature instability caused by a local chemical modification of a phospholipid membrane. In our experiments, a basic solution is microinjected close to a giant unilamellar vesicle, which induces a local chemical…
Magnetic nanoparticles in a colloidal solution self-assemble in various aligned structures, which has a profound influence on the flow behavior. However, the precise role of the microstructure in the development of the rheological response…
Active drops emit/absorb chemical solutes, whose concentration gradients cause interfacial flows driving their own transport and the propulsion of the droplet. Such non-linear coupling enables active drops to achieve directed…
Colloidal particles can spontaneously self-assemble into ordered structures, which not only can manipulate the propagation of light, but also vibration or phonons. Using Monte Carlo simulation, we study the self-assembly of perfectly…
We model the behaviour of a single colloid embedded in a cross-linked polymer gel, immersed in a viscous background fluid. External fields actuate the particle into a periodic motion, which deforms the embedding matrix and creates a local…
Colloidal particles can self-assemble into various ordered structures in fluid flows that have potential applications in biomedicine, materials synthesis and encryption. These dynamic processes are also of fundamental interest for probing…
Soft materials such as colloidal suspensions, polymer solutions and liquid crystals are constituted by mesoscopic entities held together by weak forces. Their mechanical moduli are several orders of magnitude lower than those of atomic…
The self-assembly of submerged cold-plasma-treated polyethylene beads is reported. The plasma-treated immersed millimetrically-sized polyethylene beads formed well-ordered 2D quasi-crystalline structures. The submerged floating of light…
Polymorphism contributes to the diversity of nature, so that even materials having identical chemical compositions exhibit variations in properties because of different lattice symmetries. Thus, if stacked together into multilayers,…
Monolayers of soft colloidal particles confined at fluid interfaces have been attracting increasing interest for fundamental studies and applications alike. However, establishing the relation between their internal architecture, which is…
The decay of correlations in ionic fluids is a classical problem in soft matter physics that underpins applications ranging from controlling colloidal self-assembly to batteries and supercapacitors. The conventional wisdom, based on…