Hierarchical Self-Assembly of Asymmetric Amphiphatic Spherical Colloidal Particles

Abstract

From dumbbells to FCC crystals, we study the self-assembly pathway of amphiphatic, spherical colloidal particles as a function of the size of the hydrophobic region using molecular dynamics simulations. Specifically, we analyze how local inter-particle interactions correlate to the final self-assembled aggregate and how they affect the dynamical pathway of structure formation. We present a detailed diagram separating the many phases that we find for different sizes of the hydrophobic area, and uncover a narrow region where particles self-assemble into hollow, faceted cages that could potentially find interesting engineering applications.

14 pages, 9 figures. Revised text version. Published in Physical Review E

References in corpus (2)

• Reversible self-assembly of patchy particles into monodisperse icosahedral clusters
• A Precise Packing Sequence for Self-Assembled Convex Structures

Cited by in corpus (21)

• Phase diagram of Janus Particles
• The Statistical Mechanics of Dynamic Pathways to Self-assembly
• Dynamical density functional theory for colloidal particles with arbitrary shape
• Activity-Enhanced Self-Assembly of a Colloidal Kagome Lattice
• Self-Assembly of Patchy Colloidal Dumbbells
• Self-assembly of amphiphilic peanut-shaped nanoparticles
• Reentrant phase behaviour for systems with competition between phase separation and self-assembly
• Self-assembly of active amphiphilic Janus particles
• Structures and pathways for clathrin self-assembly in the bulk and on membranes
• How to model the interaction of charged Janus particles
• Dynamical density functional theory for orientable colloids including inertia and hydrodynamic interactions
• Layer-by-layer assembly of patchy particles as a route to non-trivial structures
• Exploiting classical nucleation theory for reverse self-assembly
• Crystallization of hard aspherical particles
• Phase behavior of repulsive polymer-tethered colloids
• Co-assembly of Janus nanoparticles in block copolymer systems
• On the phase behavior of hard aspherical particles
• Orientational order and morphology of clusters of self-assembled Janus swimmers
• Free Energy of Multiple Overlapping Chains
• Self-Assembly Formed by Spherical Patchy Particles with Long-Range Attraction
• Asymmetric Assembly of Lennard-Jones Janus Dimers