Related papers: Structure of Polypeptide Based Diblock Copolymers …
Self-propelled colloidal particles exhibit rich non-equilibrium phenomena and have promising applications in fields such as drug delivery and self-assembled active materials. Previous experimental and theoretical studies have shown that…
We demonstrate that an applied electric field causes piezoelectric distortion across single molecular monolayers of oligopeptides. We deposited self-assembled monolayers ~1.5 nm high onto smooth gold surfaces. These monolayers exhibit…
The formation of self assembled structures such as micelles has been intensively studied and is well understood. The ability of a solution of amphiphilic molecules to develop micelles is depending on the concentration and characterized by…
In a recent work we proposed a coarse-grained methodology for studying the response of peptides when simulated at different values of pH; in this work we extend the methodology to analyze the pH-dependent behavior of coiled coils. This…
Self-organized complex structures in nature, e.g. viral capsids, hierarchical biopolymers, and bacterial flagella, offer efficiency, adaptability, robustness, and multi-functionality. Can we program the self-assembly of three-dimensional…
The assembly of nanometer-sized building blocks into complex morphologies is not only of fundamental interest but also plays a key role in material science and nanotechnology. We show that the shape of self-assembled superstructures formed…
Low-density "equilibrium" gels that consist of a percolated, kinetically arrested network of colloidal particles and are resilient to aging can be fabricated by restricting the number of effective bonds that form between the colloids.…
We investigate how the microstructure of a colloidal polycrystal influences its linear viscoelasticity. We use thermosensitive copolymer micelles that arrange in water in a cubic crystalline lattice, yielding a colloidal polycrystal. The…
The density and orientational relaxation of bulk water can be separately studied by depolarized light scattering (DLS) and dielectric spectroscopy (DS), respectively. Here we ask the question of what are the leading collective modes…
'Soft' patchy surfactant micelles have become an additional building tool in self-assembling systems. The triblock copolymer, Pluronic F108, forms spherical micelles in aqueous solutions upon heating leading to a simple phase diagram with a…
We use lattice Boltzmann simulations to investigate the formation of arrested structures upon demixing of a binary solvent containing neutrally wetting colloidal particles. Previous simulations for symmetric fluid quenches pointed to the…
We study the effective interaction between differently charged polyelectrolyte-colloid complexes in electrolyte solutions via Monte Carlo simulations. These complexes are formed when short and flexible polyelectrolyte chains adsorb onto…
We present real-time observations by confocal microscopy of the dynamic behavior of multilamellar vesicles (MLVs), composed of charged synthetic lipids, when put in contact with oppositely charged polyelectrolyte (PE) molecules. We find…
We investigate the effect of the size of nanoparticles on the behaviour of equilibrium polymers (Wormlike micelles) and nanoparticle system. The self-organised structures of nanoparticles in the system show a morphological change from…
Polyelectrolyte-surfactant complexes (PESCs) have long been employed as oil-in-water (o/w) emulsions stabilizers, but never in the structure of colloidal complex coacervates providing a Pickering effect. The complexed state of PESCs could…
We report a simple route to form robust, inorganic, semi-permeable compartments composed of montmorillonite, a natural plate-like clay mineral that occurs widely in the environment. Mechanical forces due to shear in a narrow gap assemble…
Creating materials with structure that is independently controllable at a range of scales requires breaking naturally occurring hierarchies. Breaking these hierarchies can be achieved via the decoupling of building block attributes from…
The effect of silica nanoparticles on transient microemulsion networks made of microemulsion droplets and telechelic copolymer molecules in water is studied, as a function of droplet size and concentration, amount of copolymer, and…
We demonstrate scaffolding of plasmonic nanoparticles by topological defects induced by colloidal microspheres to match their surface boundary conditions with a uniform far-field alignment in a liquid crystal host. Displacing energetically…
Molecular dynamics simulations have been performed on pure liquid water, aqueous solutions of sodium chloride, and polymer solutions exposed to a strong external electric field with the goal to gain molecular insight into the structural…