On the programmed assembly of colloidal matter

Self-assembly of colloidal particles has enormous potential as a bottom-up means of structure fabrication because of the scope for tuning the interparticle interactions[1,2]. However, examples of colloidal self-assembly into target structures via a priori designed building blocks are still rather limited[3] The key to the success of programmed self-assembly as a means of structure fabrication is the ability to encode the target structure into the building blocks. In this presentation I will talk about computational approaches to programmed assembly into supracolloidal architectures[4,5,6,7] maintaining a close tie with contemporary experimental research. I will present illustrative examples, employing anisotropic colloidal particles such as magnetic and patchy particles, for targeted chiral superstructures, and highlight a hierarchical self-assembly scheme for reconfigurable hollow spherical structures.

1 G. M. Whitesides and M. Boncheva, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 99, 4769 (2002). 2 S. C. Glotzer and M. J. Solomon, Nature Mater. 6, 557 (2007). 3 L. Cademartiri and K. J. M. Bishop, Nature Mater. 14, 2 (2015). 4 D. Chakrabarti, S. N. Fejer, and D. J. Wales, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 106, 20164 (2009). 5 J. W. R. Morgan, D. Chakrabarti, N. Dorsaz, and D. J. Wales, ACS Nano 7, 1246 (2013). 6 S. N. Fejer, D. Chakrabarti, H. Kusumaatmaja, and D. J. Wales, Nanoscale 6, 9448 (2014). 7 D. Morphew and D. Chakrabarti, Nanoscale 7, 8343 (2015).