Related papers: Taming polymorphism of tubule self-assembly using …
In contrast to most self-assembling synthetic materials, which undergo unbounded growth, many biological self-assembly processes are self-limited. That is, the assembled structures have one or more finite dimensions that are much larger…
Self-assembly is one of the most promising strategies for making functional materials at the nanoscale, yet new design principles for making self-limiting architectures, rather than spatially unlimited periodic lattice structures, are…
Self-assembly is one of the prevalent strategies used by living systems to fabricate ensembles of precision nanometer-scale structures and devices. The push for analogous approaches to create synthetic nanomaterials has led to the…
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…
The ability to design and synthesize ever more complicated colloidal particles opens the possibility of self-assembling a zoo of complex structures, including those with one or more self-limited length scales. An undesirable feature of…
We use computational modeling to investigate the assembly thermodynamics of a particle-based model for geometrically frustrated assembly, in which the local packing geometry of subunits is incompatible with uniform, strain-free large-scale…
Algorithmic self-assembly, a generalization of crystal growth processes, has been proposed as a mechanism for autonomous DNA computation and for bottom-up fabrication of complex nanostructures. A `program' for growing a desired structure…
The efficient and controlled assembly of complex structures from macromolecular building blocks is a critical open question in both biological systems and nanoscience. Using molecular dynamics simulations we study the self-assembly of…
We describe a computational model for studying the complexity of self-assembled structures with active molecular components. Our model captures notions of growth and movement ubiquitous in biological systems. The model is inspired by…
Peptides and proteins exhibit a common tendency to assemble into highly ordered fibrillar aggregates, whose formation proceeds in a nucleation-dependent manner that is often preceded by the formation of disordered oligomeric assemblies.…
The self-assembly of complex structures from engineered subunits is a major goal of nanotechnology, but controlling their size becomes increasingly difficult in larger assemblies. Existing strategies present significant challenges, among…
Understanding the complex self-assembly of biomacromolecules is a major outstanding question. Microtubules are one example of a biopolymer that possesses characteristics quite distinct from standard synthetic polymers that are derived from…
One of the challenges of self-assembling finite-sized colloidal aggregates with a sought morphology is the necessity of precisely sorting the position of the colloids at the microscopic scale to avoid the formation of off-target structures.…
We investigate the mechanical origin of polymorphic structures in two-dimensional tubulin assemblies, of which microtubules are the best known example. These structures feature twisted ribbons, flat tubulin sheets, macrotubules, and hoops,…
In the self-assembly process which drives the formation of cellular membranes, micelles, and capsids, a collection of separated subunits spontaneously binds together to form functional and more ordered structures. In this work, we study the…
The process of self-assembly is guided by the minimization of free energy, which limits the symmetries available for assembly and ultimately the usefulness of devices fabricated in this fashion. Here, we demonstrate experimentally for the…
We present a modular DNA origami design approach to address the challenges of assembling geometrically complex nanoscale structures, including those with nonuniform Gaussian curvature. This approach features a core structure that completely…
Recent advances enable the creation of nanoscale building blocks with complex geometries and interaction specificities for self-assembly. This nearly boundless design space necessitates design principles for defining the mutual interactions…
We investigate general properties of non-deterministic self-assembly with asymmetric interactions, using a computational model and DNA tile assembly experiments. By contrasting symmetric and asymmetric interactions we show that the latter…
Recent advancements in microbiology have motivated the study of the production of nanostructures with applications such as biomedical computing and molecular robotics. One way to construct these structures is to construct branched DNA…