A design path for the hierarchical self-assembly of patchy colloidal particles

E. Edlund; O. Lindgren; M. Nilsson Jacobi

doi:10.1039/c5sm00596e

Self-Assembly of Shape-Tunable Oblate Colloidal Particles into Orientationally Ordered Crystals, Glassy Crystals and Plastic Crystals

Soft Matter ◽

10.1039/d1sm00343g ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Jiawei Lu ◽

Xiangyu Bu ◽

Xinghua Zhang ◽

Bing Liu

Keyword(s):

Crystal Structures ◽

Self Assembly ◽

Colloidal Particles ◽

Building Blocks ◽

Fundamental Question ◽

The Self ◽

Plastic Crystals ◽

Self Assembled ◽

Glassy Crystals ◽

The Relationship

The shapes of colloidal particles are crucial to the self-assembled superstructures. Understanding the relationship between the shapes of building blocks and the resulting crystal structures is an important fundamental question....

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Shaping colloidal bananas to reveal biaxial, splay-bend nematic, and smectic phases

Science ◽

10.1126/science.abb4536 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 369 (6506) ◽

pp. 950-955

Author(s):

Carla Fernández-Rico ◽

Massimiliano Chiappini ◽

Taiki Yanagishima ◽

Heidi de Sousa ◽

Dirk G. A. L. Aarts ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Phase Behavior ◽

Self Assembly ◽

Colloidal Particles ◽

Functional Materials ◽

Building Blocks ◽

Develop Model ◽

Smectic Phases ◽

Particle Level ◽

Nematic Phases ◽

The Impact

Understanding the impact of curvature on the self-assembly of elongated microscopic building blocks, such as molecules and proteins, is key to engineering functional materials with predesigned structure. We develop model “banana-shaped” colloidal particles with tunable dimensions and curvature, whose structure and dynamics are accessible at the particle level. By heating initially straight rods made of SU-8 photoresist, we induce a controllable shape deformation that causes the rods to buckle into banana-shaped particles. We elucidate the phase behavior of differently curved colloidal bananas using confocal microscopy. Although highly curved bananas only form isotropic phases, less curved bananas exhibit very rich phase behavior, including biaxial nematic phases, polar and antipolar smectic-like phases, and even the long-predicted, elusive splay-bend nematic phase.

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Self-assembly mechanism in colloids: perspectives from statistical physics

Open Physics ◽

10.2478/s11534-012-0019-x ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Achille Giacometti

Keyword(s):

Integral Equation ◽

Self Assembly ◽

Hard Sphere ◽

Statistical Physics ◽

Colloidal Particles ◽

Building Blocks ◽

Computational Effort ◽

Spherical Particles ◽

Square Well ◽

Patchy Colloids

AbstractMotivated by recent experimental findings in chemical synthesis of colloidal particles, we draw an analogy between self-assembly processes occurring in biological systems (e.g. protein folding) and a new exciting possibility in the field of material science. We consider a self-assembly process whose elementary building blocks are decorated patchy colloids of various types, that spontaneously drive the system toward a unique and predetermined targeted macroscopic structure. To this aim, we discuss a simple theoretical model — the Kern-Frenkel model — describing a fluid of colloidal spherical particles with a pre-defined number and distribution of solvophobic and solvophilic regions on their surface. The solvophobic and solvophilic regions are described via a short-range square-well and a hard-sphere potentials, respectively. Integral equation and perturbation theories are presented to discuss structural and thermodynamical properties, with particular emphasis on the computation of the fluid-fluid (or gas-liquid) transition in the temperaturedensity plane. The model allows the description of both one and two attractive caps, as a function of the fraction of covered attractive surface, thus interpolating between a square-well and a hard-sphere fluid, upon changing the coverage. By comparison with Monte Carlo simulations, we assess the pros and the cons of both integral equation and perturbation theories in the present context of patchy colloids, where the computational effort for numerical simulations is rather demanding.

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Color from hierarchy: Diverse optical properties of micron-sized spherical colloidal assemblies

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.1506272112 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 112 (35) ◽

pp. 10845-10850 ◽

Cited By ~ 127

Author(s):

Nicolas Vogel ◽

Stefanie Utech ◽

Grant T. England ◽

Tanya Shirman ◽

Katherine R. Phillips ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Self Assembly ◽

Colloidal Particles ◽

Building Blocks ◽

Bragg Diffraction ◽

Structural Color ◽

Emulsion Droplet ◽

Multiple Length Scales ◽

Optical Effects ◽

The Individual ◽

Diffraction Effects

Materials in nature are characterized by structural order over multiple length scales have evolved for maximum performance and multifunctionality, and are often produced by self-assembly processes. A striking example of this design principle is structural coloration, where interference, diffraction, and absorption effects result in vivid colors. Mimicking this emergence of complex effects from simple building blocks is a key challenge for man-made materials. Here, we show that a simple confined self-assembly process leads to a complex hierarchical geometry that displays a variety of optical effects. Colloidal crystallization in an emulsion droplet creates micron-sized superstructures, termed photonic balls. The curvature imposed by the emulsion droplet leads to frustrated crystallization. We observe spherical colloidal crystals with ordered, crystalline layers and a disordered core. This geometry produces multiple optical effects. The ordered layers give rise to structural color from Bragg diffraction with limited angular dependence and unusual transmission due to the curved nature of the individual crystals. The disordered core contributes nonresonant scattering that induces a macroscopically whitish appearance, which we mitigate by incorporating absorbing gold nanoparticles that suppress scattering and macroscopically purify the color. With increasing size of the constituent colloidal particles, grating diffraction effects dominate, which result from order along the crystal’s curved surface and induce a vivid polychromatic appearance. The control of multiple optical effects induced by the hierarchical morphology in photonic balls paves the way to use them as building blocks for complex optical assemblies—potentially as more efficient mimics of structural color as it occurs in nature.

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Factors Affecting Molecular Self-Assembly and Its Mechanism

Scientific Research Journal ◽

10.24191/srj.v9i1.5385 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

pp. 43 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Hueyling Tan

Keyword(s):

Self Assembly ◽

Building Blocks ◽

Molecular Engineering ◽

Molecular Structures ◽

Polymer Science ◽

New Approach ◽

Factors Affecting ◽

Dna Structures ◽

Self Assembling ◽

Wide Range

Molecular self-assembly is ubiquitous in nature and has emerged as a new approach to produce new materials in chemistry, engineering, nanotechnology, polymer science and materials. Molecular self-assembly has been attracting increasing interest from the scientific community in recent years due to its importance in understanding biology and a variety of diseases at the molecular level. In the last few years, considerable advances have been made in the use ofpeptides as building blocks to produce biological materials for wide range of applications, including fabricating novel supra-molecular structures and scaffolding for tissue repair. The study ofbiological self-assembly systems represents a significant advancement in molecular engineering and is a rapidly growing scientific and engineering field that crosses the boundaries ofexisting disciplines. Many self-assembling systems are rangefrom bi- andtri-block copolymers to DNA structures as well as simple and complex proteins andpeptides. The ultimate goal is to harness molecular self-assembly such that design andcontrol ofbottom-up processes is achieved thereby enabling exploitation of structures developed at the meso- and macro-scopic scale for the purposes oflife and non-life science applications. Such aspirations can be achievedthrough understanding thefundamental principles behind the selforganisation and self-synthesis processes exhibited by biological systems.

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A Bottom-Up Approach to Solution-Processed, Atomically Precise Graphitic Cylinders on Surfaces

10.26434/chemrxiv.7158959 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Erik Leonhardt ◽

Jeff M. Van Raden ◽

David Miller ◽

Lev N. Zakharov ◽

Benjamin Aleman ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Self Assembly ◽

Carbon Nanostructures ◽

Carbon Nanomaterials ◽

Circle Packing ◽

Pyrolytic Graphite ◽

Building Blocks ◽

Bottom Up ◽

Casting Technique ◽

New Class ◽

Solution Casting Technique

Extended carbon nanostructures, such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs), exhibit remarkable properties but are difficult to synthesize uniformly. Herein, we present a new class of carbon nanomaterials constructed via the bottom-up self-assembly of cylindrical, atomically-precise small molecules. Guided by supramolecular design principles and circle packing theory, we have designed and synthesized a fluorinated nanohoop that, in the solid-state, self-assembles into nanotube-like arrays with channel diameters of precisely 1.63 nm. A mild solution-casting technique is then used to construct vertical “forests” of these arrays on a highly-ordered pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) surface through epitaxial growth. Furthermore, we show that a basic property of nanohoops, fluorescence, is readily transferred to the bulk phase, implying that the properties of these materials can be directly altered via precise functionalization of their nanohoop building blocks. The strategy presented is expected to have broader applications in the development of new graphitic nanomaterials with π-rich cavities reminiscent of CNTs.

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Reversible microscale assembly of nanoparticles driven by the phase transition of a thermotropic liquid crystal

10.26434/chemrxiv.5691169 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Niamh Mac Fhionnlaoich ◽

Stephen Schrettl ◽

Nicholas B. Tito ◽

Ye Yang ◽

Malavika Nair ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Phase Transition ◽

Liquid Crystal ◽

Self Assembly ◽

Nematic Phase ◽

Hierarchical Control ◽

Building Blocks ◽

Model System ◽

Microscopic Level ◽

Reversible Process ◽

Thermotropic Liquid Crystal

The arrangement of nanoscale building blocks into patterns with microscale periodicity is challenging to achieve via self-assembly processes. Here, we report on the phase transition-driven collective assembly of gold nanoparticles in a thermotropic liquid crystal. A temperature-induced transition from the isotropic to the nematic phase leads to the assembly of individual nanometre-sized particles into arrays of micrometre-sized aggregates, whose size and characteristic spacing can be tuned by varying the cooling rate. This fully reversible process offers hierarchical control over structural order on the molecular, nanoscopic, and microscopic level and is an interesting model system for the programmable patterning of nanocomposites with access to micrometre-sized periodicities.

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Synthesis and Self-assembly of Amphiphilic Precision Glycomacromolecules

Polymer Chemistry ◽

10.1039/d1py00422k ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Alexander Banger ◽

Julian Sindram ◽

Marius Otten ◽

Jessica Kania ◽

Alexander Strzelczyk ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Self Assembly ◽

Solid Phase ◽

Building Blocks ◽

Polymer Synthesis

We present the synthesis of so called amphiphilic glycomacromolecules (APGs) by using solid-phase polymer synthesis. Based on tailor made building blocks, monosdisperse APGs with varying compositions are synthesized, introducing carbohydrate...

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