Controlling crystallization and its absence: Proteins, colloids and patchy models

Abstract

The ability to control the crystallization behaviour (including its absence) of particles, be they biomolecules such as globular proteins, inorganic colloids, nanoparticles, or metal atoms in an alloy, is of both fundamental and technological importance. Much can be learnt from the exquisite control that biological systems exert over the behaviour of proteins, where protein crystallization and aggregation are generally suppressed, but where in particular instances complex crystalline assemblies can be formed that have a functional purpose. We also explore the insights that can be obtained from computational modelling, focussing on the subtle interplay between the interparticle interactions, the preferred local order and the resulting crystallization kinetics. In particular, we highlight the role played by ``frustration'', where there is an incompatibility between the preferred local order and the global crystalline order, using examples from atomic glass formers and model anisotropic particles.

11 pages, 7 figures

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• A simple patchy colloid model for the phase behavior of lysozyme dispersions
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• Control of pathways and yields of protein crystallization through the interplay of nonspecific and specific attractions
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• Formation of dodecagonal quasicrystals in two-dimensional systems of patchy particles
• Self-assembly of short DNA duplexes: from a coarse-grained model to experiments through a theoretical link
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• Self-assembly of monodisperse clusters: Dependence on target geometry
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• Computing phase diagrams for a quasicrystal-forming patchy-particle system
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• Predicting Patchy Particle Crystals: Variable Box Shape Simulations and Evolutionary Algorithms
• Templated self-assembly of patchy particles
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• Self-assembly scenarios of patchy colloidal particles
• Design rules for the self-assembly of a protein crystal
• Equilibrium cluster fluids: Pair interactions via inverse design
• Symmetry effects in electrostatic interactions between two arbitrarily charged spherical shells in the Debye-Hückel approximation
• Reentrant phase behaviour for systems with competition between phase separation and self-assembly
• Properties of patchy colloidal particles close to a surface: a Monte Carlo and density functional study
• Approximating the dynamical evolution of systems of strongly-interacting overdamped particles
• Self-assembly of two-dimensional binary quasicrystals: A possible route to a DNA quasicrystal
• Programming patchy particles to form complex periodic structures
• Nonclassical assembly pathways of anisotropic particles
• Phase diagram of self-assembled rigid rods on two-dimensional lattices: Theory and Monte Carlo simulations
• Nonequilibrium growth of patchy-colloid networks on substrates
• How to model the interaction of charged Janus particles
• Minimal positive design for self-assembly of the Archimedean tilings
• The glass-forming ability of model metal-metalloid alloys
• Nonequilibrium adsorption of 2AnB patchy colloids on substrates
• Neuroevolutionary learning of particles and protocols for self-assembly
• Competing ordered structures formed by particles with a regular tetrahedral patch decoration
• Interplay between crystallization and glass transition in binary Lennard-Jones mixtures
• Emergent rhombus tilings from molecular interactions with $M$-fold rotational symmetry
• Mixtures of functionalized colloids on substrates
• Common physical framework explains phase behavior and dynamics of atomic, molecular and polymeric network-formers
• A simple and accurate method to determine fluid-crystal phase boundaries from direct coexistence simulations
• Fluids of spherical molecules with dipolar-like nonuniform adhesion. An analytically solvable anisotropic model
• Thermodynamic perturbation theory for associating fluids confined in a 1- dimensional pore
• Stabilizing quasicrystals composed of patchy colloids by narrowing the patch width
• Dissipative self-assembly of patchy particles under nonequilibrium drive: a computational study
• Bond disorder, frustration and polymorphism in the spontaneous crystallization of a polymer melt
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• Controlling Fragment Competition on Pathways to Addressable Self-Assembly
• Irregular model DNA particles self-assemble into a regular structure
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• A patchy-particle 3-dimensional octagonal quasicrystal
• Phase Field Crystal model for particles with n-fold rotational symmetry in two dimensions