Related papers: General theory for packing icosahedral shells into…
We explore the use of templated self-assembly to facilitate the formation of complex target structures made from patchy particles. First, we consider the templating of high-symmetry shell structures around a spherical core particle. We find…
Nanoparticles with "sticky patches" have long been proposed as building blocks for the self-assembly of complex structures. The synthetic realizability of such patchy particles, however, greatly lags behind predictions of patterns they…
We investigate the structure of 13-particle clusters in binary alloys for various size ratios and different concentrations via MD simulation. Our goal is to predict which systems are likely to form local icosahedral structures when rapidly…
Quasicrystals are fascinating structures, characterized by strong positional order but lacking the periodicity of a crystal. In colloidal systems, quasicrystals are typically predicted for particles with complex or highly specific…
Recent advances in synthetic methods enable designing subunits that self-assemble into structures with precise, finite sizes and well-defined architectures, but yields are frequently suppressed by the formation of off-target metastable…
The formation of quasi-spherical cages from protein building blocks is a remarkable self-assembly process in many natural systems, where a small number of elementary building blocks are assembled to build a highly symmetric icosahedral…
Macroscopic properties of suspensions, such as those composed of globular particles (e.g., colloidal or macromolecular), can be tuned by controlling the equilibrium aggregation of the particles. We examine how aggregation -- and, hence,…
We systematically study the design of simple patchy sphere models that reversibly self-assemble into monodisperse icosahedral clusters. We find that the optimal patch width is a compromise between structural specificity (the patches must be…
The design of complex materials and the formation of specific patterns often arise from the properties of the individual building blocks. In this respect, colloidal systems offer a unique opportunity because nowadays they can be synthesized…
Building structures with hierarchical order through the self-assembly of smaller blocks is not only a prerogative of nature, but also a strategy to design artificial materials with tailored functions. We explore in simulation the…
Designing particles that are able to form icosahedral quasicrystals (IQCs) and that are as simple as possible is not only of fundamental interest but is also important to the potential realization of IQCs in materials other than metallic…
We first propose a general method to construct the complete set of on-shell operator bases involving massive particles with any spins. To incorporate the non-abelian little groups of massive particles, the on-shell scattering amplitude…
Soft spheres interacting via a hard core and range of attractive and repulsive "soft-shoulder" potentials self-assemble into clusters forming a variety of mesophases. We combine a mean field theory developed from a lattice model with a…
Assembly of spherical colloidal particles into extended structures, including linear strings, in the absence of directional interparticle bonding interactions or external perturbation could facilitate the design of new functional materials.…
We analyze the structure diagram for binary clusters of Lennard-Jones particles by means of a global optimization approach for a large range of cluster sizes, compositions and interaction energies and present a publicly accessible database…
Using large deviation theory and principles of stochastic optimal control, we show that rare molecular dynamics trajectories conditioned on assembling a specific target structure encode a set of interactions and external forces that lead to…
We introduce a shell-model theory that combines traditional spherical states, which yield a diagonal representation of the usual single-particle interaction, with collective configurations that track deformations, and test the validity of…
The field of complex self-assembly is moving toward the design of multi-particle structures consisting of thousands of distinct building blocks. To exploit the potential benefits of structures with such `addressable complexity,' we need to…
The use of reduced models for investigating the self-assembly dynamics underlying protein shell formation in spherical viruses is described. The spontaneous self-assembly of these polyhedral, supramolecular structures, in which icosahedral…
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…