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Entropic forces in colloidal suspensions and in polymer-colloid systems are of long-standing and continuing interest. Experiments show how entropic forces can be used to control the self-assembly of colloidal particles. Significant advances…

Many forms of programmable matter have been proposed for various tasks. We use an abstract model of self-organizing particle systems for programmable matter which could be used for a variety of applications, including smart paint and…

We present an efficient method to perform overdamped Brownian dynamics simulations in external force fields and for particle interactions that include a hardcore part. The method applies to particle motion in one dimension, where it is…

Self-assembly of colloidal particles is a promising avenue to control the shape and dynamics of larger aggregates. However, achieving the necessary fine control over the dynamics and specificity of the bonds between such particles remains a…

Colloidal systems find important applications ranging from fabrication of photonic crystals to direct probing of phenomena typically encountered in atomic crystals and glasses. New applications - such as nanoantennas, plasmonic sensors, and…

Mobile microrobots are envisioned to be useful in a wide range of high-impact applications, many of which requiring cohesive group formation to maintain self-bounded swarms in the absence of confining boundaries. Cohesive group formation…

Endowing materials with physical intelligence holds the key for a progress leap in robotic systems. In spite of the growing success for macroscopic devices, transferring these concepts to the microscale presents several challenges connected…

Active matter physics and swarm robotics have provided powerful tools for the study and control of ensembles driven by internal sources. At the macroscale, controlling swarms typically utilizes significant memory, processing power, and…

DNA-coated particles are promising as building blocks for functional and finite-sized assemblies because they can be programmed with orthogonal interactions owing to the sequence-specific hybridization of DNA strands. To fully exploit this…

Just like atoms combine into molecules, colloids can self-organize into predetermined structures according to a set of design principles. Controlling valence -- the number of inter-particle bonds -- is a prerequisite for the assembly of…

We outline a basic strategy of how self-propulsion can be used to improve the yield of a typical colloidal self-assembly process. The success of this approach is predicated on the thoughtful design of the colloidal building block as well as…

Force-gradient decomposition methods are used to improve the energy preservation of symplectic schemes applied to Hamiltonian systems. If the potential is composed of different parts with strongly varying dynamics, this multirate potential…

Structural defects are ubiquitous in condensed matter, and not always a nuisance. For example, they underlie phenomena such as Anderson localization and hyperuniformity, and they are now being exploited to engineer novel materials. Here, we…

Physical properties of colloidal materials can be modified by addition of nanoparticles. Within a model of like-charged mixtures of particles governed by effective electrostatic interactions, we explore the influence of charged…

Motile living organisms routinely probe their surroundings to adapt in ever-evolving environments. Although synthetic microswimmers offer surrogates for self-propelled living entities, they often lack the complex feedback mechanisms that…

Topological protection ensures stability of information and particle transport against perturbations. We explore experimentally and computationally the topologically protected transport of magnetic colloids above spatially inhomogeneous…

Much work has studied effective interactions between micron-sized particles carrying linkers forming reversible, inter-particle linkages. These studies allowed understanding the equilibrium properties of colloids interacting through…

The idea of creating magnetically controllable colloids whose rheological properties can be finely tuned on the nano- or micro-scale has caused a lot of experimental and theoretical effort. The latter resulted in systems whose building…

A heterogeneous and dilute suspension of catalytically active colloids is studied as a non-equilibrium analogue of ionic systems, which has the remarkable feature of action-reaction symmetry breaking. Symmetrically coated colloids are found…

Active colloids, also known as artificial microswimmers, are self-propelled micro and nanoparticles that convert uniform sources of fuel (e.g. chemical) or uniform external driving fields (e.g. magnetic or electric) into directed motion by…