Related papers: Patchy Particles Design: From Floppy Modes to Slop…
Direct design of complex functional materials would revolutionize technologies ranging from printable organs to novel clean energy devices. However, even incremental steps towards designing functional materials have proven challenging. If…
Curved structures in soft matter and biological systems commonly emerge as a result of self-assembly processes where building blocks aggregate in a controlled manner, giving rise to specific system structure and properties. Learning how to…
Patchy particles is the name given to a large class of systems of mesoscopic particles characterized by a repulsive core and a discrete number of short-range and highly directional interaction sites. Numerical simulations have contributed…
The rapid progress in precisely designing the surface decoration of patchy colloidal particles offers a new, yet unexperienced freedom to create building entities for larger, more complex structures in soft matter systems. However, it is…
We propose an optimisation method for the inverse structural design of self-assembly of anisotropic patchy particles. The anisotropic interaction can be expressed by the spherical harmonics of the surface pattern on a patchy particle, and…
Patchy particles are a popular paradigm for the design and synthesis of nanoparticles and colloids for self-assembly. In "traditional" patchy particles, anisotropic interactions arising from patterned coatings, functionalized molecules,…
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…
The self-assembly of polymer grafted nanoparticles is more and more used in the field of functional materials. However, there is still a lack of analysis on the dynamic transformation paths of different self-assembly morphologies, which…
One emerging approach for the fabrication of complex architectures on the nanoscale is to utilize particles customized to intrinsically self-assemble into a desired structure. Inverse methods of statistical mechanics have proven…
Inverse patchy colloids are nano- to micro-scale particles with a surface divided into differently charged regions. This class of colloids combines directional, selective bonding with a relatively simple particle design: owing to the…
Recent simulations have studied the formation of patterns in a binary mixture of immiscible surfactants absorbed onto the surface of a spherical nanoparticle. The resulting patterns (Janus, spots and stripes) were in good agreement with…
Patchy colloids with highly directional interactions are ideal building blocks to control the local arrangements resulting from their spontaneous self-organization. Here we propose their use, combined with substrates and nonequilibrium…
Nano- to micro-sized particles with differently charged surface areas exhibit complex interaction patterns, characterized by both opposite-charge attraction and like-charge repulsion. While several successful models have been proposed in…
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…
Motivated by observations of heterogeneous domain structure on the surface of cells, we consider a minimal model to describe the dynamics of phase separation on the surface of a spherical particle. Finite-size effects on the curved particle…
Inspired by biology and implemented using nanotechnology, the self-assembly of patchy particles has emerged as a pivotal mechanism for constructing complex structures that mimic natural systems with diverse functionalities. Here, we explore…
We introduce a scheme to design patchy particles so that a given target crystal is the global free-energy minimum at sufficiently low temperature. A key feature is a torsional component to the potential that only allows binding when…
Patchy particles are a class of colloids with functionalized surfaces. Through surface functionalization, the strength and directionality of the colloidal interactions are tunable allowing control over coordination of the particle.…
Floppy modes --- deformations that cost zero energy --- are central to the mechanics of a wide class of systems. For disordered systems, such as random networks and particle packings, it is well-understood how the number of floppy modes is…
The self-assembly of particles into organized structures is a key feature of living organisms and a major engineering challenge. While it may proceed through the binding of perfectly matched, puzzle-pieces-like particles, many other…