Related papers: Engineering Interfaces with Electric and Magnetic …
Magnetic fields are everywhere in the Universe and in our everyday life and many processes are affected by their presence, generating a rich phenomenology that depends also on other possible external agents. We review here some results,…
Small objects floating on a fluid have a tendency to aggregate due to capillary forces. This effect has been used, with the help of a magnetic induction field, to assemble submillimeter metallic spheres into a variety of structures, whose…
Self-assembly of nanoparticles at fluid-fluid interfaces is a promising route to fabricate functional materials from the bottom-up. However, directing and controlling particles into highly tunable and predictable structures -- while…
The transport of motile entities across modulated energy landscapes plays an important role in a range of phenomena in biology, colloidal science and solid-state physics. Here, an easily implementable strategy that allows for the collective…
Field-induced assembly of colloidal particles into structures of desired configurations is extremely relevant from the viewpoint of producing field-assembled micro-swimmers and reconfigurable smart materials. However, the behaviour of…
This paper presents an overview and discussion of magnetocapillary self-assemblies. New results are presented, in particular concerning the possible development of future applications. These self-organizing structures possess the notable…
The fabrication of novel soft materials is an important scientific and technological challenge. We investigate the response of magnetic ellipsoidal particles adsorbed at fluid-fluid interfaces to external magnetic fields. By exploiting…
Capillarity-driven self-assembly at fluidic interfaces offers a scalable route to large, reconfigurable materials. Microscale particles with high horizontal-to-vertical aspect ratios become attractive building blocks for shape-directed…
We show that curvatures in general ambient flow profiles can align shape-asymmetric active particles, revealing a previously overlooked competition with externally applied aligning fields. Focusing on the ubiquitous case of channel flows,…
We investigate the steady-state organisation of active particles residing on an interface. Particle activity induces interface deformations, while the local shape of the interface guides particle movement. We consider multiple species of…
Electron plasmas confined by an external magnetic field exhibit variations in a two-dimensional plane orthogonal to the confining magnetic field. A nonlinear fluid simulation code to investigate the properties of 2-D electron plasma wave…
In directed assembly, small building clocks are assembled into an organized structures under the influence of guiding fields. Capillary interactions provide a versatile route for structure formation. Colloids adsorbed on fluid interfaces…
Self-assembly plays an essential role in many natural processes, involving the formation and evolution of living or non-living structures, and shows potential applications in many emerging domains. In existing research and practice, there…
We discuss the appareance of ordered structures in assemblies of magnetic particles. The phenomenon occurs when dipolar interactions and the thermal motion of the particles compete, and is mediated by screening and excluded volume effects.…
Understanding the motion of particles on an air-liquid interface can impact a wide range of scientific fields and applications. Diamagnetic particles floating on an air-paramagnetic-liquid interface are previously known to have a repulsive…
The ability to use external magnetic fields to influence the microstructure in polycrystalline materials has potential applications in microstructural engineering. To explore this potential and to understand the complex interactions between…
Electromagnetic fields with complex spatial variation routinely arise in Nature. We study the response of a small molecule to monochromatic fields of arbitrary three-dimensional geometry. First, we consider the allowed configurations of the…
Entropic forces in colloidal suspensions and in polymer-colloid systems are of long-standing and continuing interest. Experiments show how entropic forces can be used to control the self-assembly of colloidal particles. Significant advances…
The ability to control electromagnetic fields on the subwavelength scale could open exciting new venues in many fields of science. Transformation optics provides one way to attain such control through the local variation of the permittivity…
A particle placed in soft matter distorts its host and creates an energy landscape. This can occur, for example, for particles in liquid crystals, for particles on lipid bilayers or for particles trapped at fluid interfaces. Such energies…