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Self-assembly of granular particles is of great interest in both applied and basic research. It is commonly observed that when randomly packed into a container, granular particles form disordered structures like glass. As the particles are…
Biomolecular condensates are liquid- or gel-like droplets of proteins and nucleic acids formed at least in part through liquid-liquid phase separation. Condensates enable diverse functions of cells and the pathogens that infect them,…
Microscopic machines utilize free energy to create and maintain out-of-equilibrium organization in virtually all living things. Often this takes the form of converting the free energy stored in nonequilibrium chemical potential differences…
Self-assembly materials are traditionally designed so that molecular or meso-scale components form a single kind of large structure. Here, we propose a scheme to create "multifarious assembly mixtures", which self-assemble many different…
Controlled micro- to meso-scale porosity is a common materials design goal with possible applications ranging from molecular gas adsorption to particle size selective permeability or solubility. Here, we use inverse methods of statistical…
Nearly thirty years after its inception, the field of DNA-programmed colloidal self-assembly has begun to realize its initial promise. In this review, we summarize recent developments in designing effective interactions and understanding…
Fabrication of highly ordered and dense nanofibers assemblies is of key importance in designing high-performance and multi-functional materials. In this work, we design an experimental approach in silico, combining shear flow and solvent…
This article reviews recent inverse statistical-mechanical methodologies that we have devised to optimize interaction potentials in soft matter systems that correspond to stable "target" structures. We are interested in finding the…
The appearance of emergent symmetries in complex systems with components that can form composite units provides us with opportunities for design and control of exotic phase behaviour, for example by exploiting the dynamical symmetry…
The study of motility control by smart agents offers a promising platform for systematically exploring the fundamental physical constraints underlying the functioning of bio-inspired micro-machines operating far from equilibrium. Here, we…
Molecular self-assembly is a well-known technique to create highly functional nanostructures on surfaces. Self-assembly on two-dimensional materials is a developing field and has already resulted in the discovery of several rich and…
Bottom-up assembly of nanocrystals (NCs) into ordered arrays, or superlattices (SLs), is a promising route to design materials with new functionalities, but the degree of control over assembly into functional structures remains challenging.…
We investigate the phase behavior and kinetics of a monodisperse mixture of active (\textit{i.e.}, self-propelled) and passive isometric Brownian particles through Brownian dynamics simulations and theory. As in a purely active system,…
Understanding the out-of-equilibrium properties of noisy microscale systems and the extent to which they can be modulated externally, is a crucial scientific and technological challenge. It holds the promise to unlock disruptive new…
We describe a method that focuses sampling effort on a user-defined selection of a large system, which can lead to substantial decreases in computational effort by speeding up the calculation of nonbonded interactions. A naive approach can…
Experimental advances enabling high-resolution external control create new opportunities to produce materials with exotic properties. In this work, we investigate how a multi-agent reinforcement learning approach can be used to design…
We demonstrate that the active thermocapillary stresses induced by multiple microbubbles offer simple routes to directed self-assembly and complex but controllable micromanipulation of mesoscopic colloidal particles embedded in a liquid.…
In this article, we study the phenomenology of a two dimensional dilute suspension of active amphiphilic Janus particles. We analyze how the morphology of the aggregates emerging from their self-assembly depends on the strength and the…
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…
Formation of highly ordered structures usually needs to overcome a high free-energy barrier that is greatly beyond the ability of thermodynamic fluctuation, such that the system would be easily trapped into a state with many defects and the…