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Designing protocols to dynamically direct the self-assembly of colloidal particles has become an important direction in soft matter physics because of the promising applications in fabrication of dynamic responsive functional materials.…
We outline a concept of self-assembled soft matter devices based on micro-fluidics, which use surfactant bilayer membranes as their main building blocks, arrested in geometric structures provided by top-down lithography. Membranes form…
Active fluids generate spontaneous, often chaotic mesoscale flows. Harnessing these flows to drive embedded soft materials into structures with controlled length scales and lifetimes is a key challenge at the interface between the fields of…
Self-assembly processes allow us to design and create complex nanostructures using molecules as building blocks and surfaces as scaffolds. This autonomous driven construction is possible due to a complex thermodynamic balance of…
Although common in nature, the self-assembly of small molecules at sold-liquid interfaces is difficult to control in artificial systems. The high mobility of dissolved small molecules limits their residence at the interface, typically…
The interpretation electrical phenomena in biomembranes is usually based on the assumption that the experimentally found discrete ion conduction events are due to a particular class of proteins called ion channels while the lipid membrane…
Self-assembly is the autonomous organization of components into patterns or structures: an essential ingredient of biology and a desired route to complex organization. At equilibrium, the structure is encoded through specific interactions,…
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…
Over the past decade, autophoretic colloids have emerged as a prototypical system for studying self-propelled motion at microscopic scales, with promising applications in microfluidics, micromachinery, and therapeutics. Their motion in a…
Engineering synthetic materials that mimic the remarkable complexity of living organisms is a fundamental challenge in science and technology. We study the spatiotemporal patterns that emerge when an active nematicfilm of microtubules and…
Colloidal building blocks with re-configurable shapes and dynamic interactions can exhibit unusual self-assembly behaviors and pathways. In this work, we consider the phase behavior of colloids coated with surface-mobile polymer brushes…
Light-activated self-propelled colloids are synthesized and their active motion is studied using optical microscopy. We propose a versatile route using different photoactive materials, and demonstrate a multiwavelength activation and…
Discotic ionic liquid crystals (DILCs) consist of self-assembled superdiscs of cations and anions that spontaneously stack in linear columns with high one-dimensional ionic and electronic charge mobility, making them prominent model systems…
Thin-film self-assembly of three-dimensional (3D) microsystems presents a compelling route to integrate complex functionalities into ultra-compact volumes, yet strategies for incorporating tunable ion-conducting elements remain limited.…
The study of elastic structures embedded with fluid-filled cavities received considerable attention in fields such as autonomous materials, sensors, actuators, and smart systems. This work studies an elastic beam embedded with a set of…
In contrast to extensively studied defects in traditional materials, we report here for the first time a systematic investigation of the formation mechanism of intrinsic defects in self-assembled peptide nanostructures. The Monte Carlo…
Recent progress in colloidal science has led to elaborate self-assembled structures whose complexity raises hopes for elaborating new materials. However, the throughputs are extremely low and consequently, the chance to produce materials of…
Multiple dissipative self-assembly protocols designed to create novel structures or to reduce kinetic traps have recently emerged. Specifically, temporal oscillations of particle interactions have been shown effective at both aims, but…
The ordering of rod-like particles in soft, deformable containers emerges from the interplay of anisotropic interactions, geometric confinement, and boundary compliance. This competition couples internal particle organization to container…
Ion channels selectively transport ions, yet the underlying mechanisms remain elusive. We propose a physical model based on the Driven Damped Harmonic Oscillator (DDHO), where self-organizing turbulent structures in the ionic flow generate…