Related papers: Programmable self-assembly of core-shell ellipsoid…
Open structures can display a number of unusual properties, including a negative Poisson's ratio, negative thermal expansion, and holographic elasticity, and have many interesting applications in engineering. However, it is a grand…
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…
Colloidal molecules are designed to mimic their molecular analogues through their anisotropic shape and interactions. However, current experimental realizations are missing the structural flexibility present in real molecules thereby…
Controlling the assembly of polyelectrolytes and surfactant at liquid-liquid interfaces offers new ways to fabricate soft materials with specific physical properties. However, little is known of the relationships between the kinetics of…
Simple models based on isotropic interparticle attractions often fail to capture experimentally observed structures of colloidal gels formed through spinodal decomposition and subsequent arrest: the resulting gels are typically denser and…
The possibility to align and organize faceted particles in the bulk offers intriguing possibilities for the design and discovery of materials and architectures exhibiting novel functional properties. The growth of ice crystals can be used…
Colloidal particles dispersed in liquid crystals can form new materials with tunable elastic and electro-optic properties. In a periodic `blue phase' host, particles should template into colloidal crystals with potential uses in photonics,…
Weakly attractive interactions between the tips of rod-like colloidal particles affect their liquid-crystal phase behaviour due to a subtle interplay between enthalpy and entropy. Here, we employ molecular dynamics simulations on…
The self-assembly of binary nanoparticle superlattices from colloidal mixtures is a promising method for the fabrication of complex colloidal co-crystal structures. However, binary mixtures often form amorphous or metastable phases instead…
Nanoparticle self-assembly is an efficient bottom-up strategy for the creation of nanostructures. In the standard approach, ligands are grafted on the surfaces of nanoparticles to keep them separated and control interparticle interactions.…
The reconfiguration of soft, deformable particles upon adsorption at the interface between two fluids underpins many aspects of their dynamics and interactions, ultimately controlling the macroscopic properties of particle monolayers of…
The surprising recent discoveries of quasicrystals and their approximants in soft matter systems poses the intriguing possibility that these structures can be realized in a broad range of nano- and micro-scale assemblies. It has been…
The self-assembly of anisotropic building blocks into complex spatial architectures is an important design strategy in material science but the mechanisms by which the anisotropic interactions influence the early-stage growth and formation…
Entropic self-assembly is governed by the shape of the constituent particles, yet a priori prediction of crystal structures from particle shape alone is non-trivial for anything but the simplest of space-filling shapes. At the same time,…
Cellular membranes exhibit a large variety of shapes, strongly coupled to their function. Many biological processes involve dynamic reshaping of membranes, usually mediated by proteins. This interaction works both ways: while proteins…
Colloidal systems find important applications ranging from fabrication of photonic crystals to direct probing of phenomena typically encountered in atomic crystals and glasses. New applications - such as nanoantennas, plasmonic sensors, and…
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…
Studying physical mechanisms and common geometric principles underlying known spherical packings is crucial for rational design of synthetic nanocontainers. Here we model the growth of small spherical shells containing n<72 identical…
A crystal lattice, when confined to the surface of a cylinder, must have a periodic structure that is commensurate with the cylinder circumference. This constraint can frustrate the system, leading to oblique crystal lattices or to…
We present the diffusiophoresis of ellipsoidal particles induced by ionic solute gradients. Contrary to the common expectation that diffusiophoresis is shape independent, here we show experimentally that this assumption breaks down when the…