Related papers: Simultaneous optimization of assembly time and yie…
The promise of self-assembly to enable bottom-up formation of materials with prescribed architectures and functions has driven intensive efforts to uncover rational design principles for maximizing the yield of a target structure. Yet,…
Modern experimental methods enable the creation of self-assembly building blocks with tunable interactions, but optimally exploiting this tunability for the self-assembly of desired structures remains an important challenge. Many studies of…
Most approaches for designing self-assembled materials focus on the thermodynamic stability of a target structure or crystal polymorph. Yet in practice, the outcome of a self-assembly process is often controlled by kinetic pathways. Here we…
Self-assembly, the process by which interacting components form well-defined and often intricate structures, is typically thought of as a spontaneous process arising from equilibrium dynamics. When a system is driven by external…
Self-assembly is a fundamental concept in biology and of significant interest to nanotechnology. Significant progress has been made in characterizing and controlling the properties of the resulting structures, both experimentally and…
Both biological and artificial self-assembly processes can take place by a range of different schemes, from the successive addition of identical building blocks, to hierarchical sequences of intermediates, all the way to the fully…
We use analytic theory and computer simulation to study patterns formed during the growth of two-component assemblies in 2D and 3D. We show that these patterns undergo a nonequilibrium phase transition, at a particular growth rate, between…
Self-assembly processes in biological and synthetic biomolecular systems are often governed by the spatial separation of biochemical processes. While previous work has focused on optimizing self-assembly through fine-tuned reaction…
Designing components that can robustly self-assemble into structures with biological complexity is a grand challenge for material science. Proofreading and error correction is required to improve assembly yield beyond equilibrium limits,…
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…
We outline a basic strategy of how self-propulsion can be used to improve the yield of a typical colloidal self-assembly process. The success of this approach is predicated on the thoughtful design of the colloidal building block as well as…
There is evidence that the self-assembly of complex molecular systems often proceeds hierarchically, by first building subunits that later assemble in larger entities, in a process that can repeat multiple times. Yet, our understanding of…
A challenge in designing self-assembling building blocks is to ensure the target state is both thermodynamically stable and kinetically accessible. These two objectives are known to be typically in competition, but it is not known how to…
We use computer simulations to investigate self-assembly in a system of model chaperonin proteins, and in an Ising lattice gas. We discuss the mechanisms responsible for rapid and efficient assembly in these systems, and we use measurements…
In automated manufacturing, robots must reliably assemble parts of various geometries and low tolerances. Ideally, they plan the required motions autonomously. This poses a substantial challenge due to high-dimensional state spaces and…
Self-assembly is a ubiquitous process in synthetic and biological systems, broadly defined as the spontaneous organization of multiple subunits (e.g. macromolecules, particles) into ordered multi-unit structures. The vast majority of…
Theories of phase change and self-assembly often invoke the idea of a `quasiequilibrium', a regime in which the nonequilibrium association of building blocks results nonetheless in a structure whose properties are determined solely by an…
The simulated self-assembly of molecular building blocks into functional complexes is a key area of study in computational biology and materials science. Self-assembly simulations of proteins using physically-motivated potentials for…
The design space for a self-assembled multicomponent objects ranges from a solution in which every building block is unique to one with the minimum number of distinct building blocks that unambiguously define the target structure. Using a…
Experiments have reached a monumental capacity for designing and synthesizing microscopic particles for self-assembly, making it possible to precisely control particle concentrations, shapes, and interactions. However, more physical insight…