Related papers: Entropic Trapping of Hard Spheres in Spherical Con…
The structure of finite self-assembling systems depends sensitively on the number of constituent building blocks. Recently, it was demonstrated that hard sphere-like colloidal particles show a magic number effect when confined in spherical…
Spherical particles confined to a sphere surface cannot pack densely into a hexagonal lattice without defects. In this study, we use hard particle Monte Carlo simulations to determine the effects of continuously deformable shape anisotropy…
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,…
The self-assembly of hard polyhedral particles confined to a flat interface is studied using Monte Carlo simulations. The particles are pinned to the interface by restricting their movement in the direction perpendicular to it while…
Entropy alone can self-assemble hard particles into colloidal crystals of remarkable complexity whose structures are the same as atomic and molecular crystals, but with larger lattice spacings. Although particle-based molecular simulation…
At low temperatures, colloidal particles with short-range attractive and long-range repulsive interactions can form various periodic microphases in bulk.In this paper, we investigate the self-assembly behaviour of colloids with competing…
At sufficiently low temperatures and high densities, repulsive spherical particles in two-dimensions (2d) form close-packed structures with six-fold symmetry. By contrast, when the interparticle interaction has an attractive anisotropic…
Packing under confinement could generate rich ordered structures through entropic effects, which is a fundamental problem in condensed matter, biophysics and material science. The influence of confinement to the anisotropic hard…
Confinement can have a considerable effect on the behavior of particle systems, and is therefore an effective way to discover new phenomena. A notable example is a system of identical bosons at low temperature under an external field…
The depletion interaction mediated by non-adsorbing polymers promotes condensation and assembly of repulsive colloidal particles into diverse higher-order structures and materials. One example, with particularly rich emergent behaviors, is…
We use numerical simulations to understand how random deviations from the ideal spherical shape affect the ability of hard particles to form fcc crystalline structures. Using a system of hard spheres as a reference, we determine the…
We investigate the behavior of a mixture of asymmetric colloidal dumbbells and emulsion droplets by means of kinetic Monte Carlo simulations. The evaporation of the droplets and the competition between droplet-colloid attraction and…
Depletion interactions arise from entropic forces, and their ability to induce aggregation and even ordering of colloidal particles through self-assembly is well established, especially for spherical colloids. We vary the size and…
Complex colloidal cluster morphologies are desirable for the fabrication of advanced materials, such as photonic crystals and meta-materials, and can be formed through evaporation-driven packing. By coupling lattice Boltzmann and discrete…
Entropy drives the phase behavior of colloids ranging from dense suspensions of hard spheres or rods to dilute suspensions of hard spheres and depletants. Entropic ordering of anisotropic shapes into complex crystals, liquid crystals, and…
Fundamental theories and models of many-body physics can be probed in experiments on ultracold atoms held in place by electromagnetic fields. In particular, of considerable interest are systems under curved confinement, since they can yield…
We study the phase behavior of hard spheres confined between two parallel hard plates using extensive computer simulations. We determine the full equilibrium phase diagram for arbitrary densities and plate separations from one to five…
Particles with directional interactions are promising building blocks for new functional materials and may serve as models for biological structures. Mutually attractive nanoparticles that are deformable due to flexible surface groups, for…
We perform direct numerical simulations of sub-Kolmogorov, inertial spheroids settling under gravity in homogeneous, isotropic turbulence and find that small-scale clustering, measured via the correlation dimension, depends sensitively on…
Recent theories predict that when a supercooled liquid approaches the glass transition, particle clusters with a special "amorphous order" nucleate within the liquid, which lead to static correlations dictating the dramatic slowdown of…