Hierarchical self-assembly of associating soft patchy particles
DIPC Seminars
- Speaker
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Prof. Christos N. Likos (Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna)
- When
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2012/10/18
13:30 - Place
- Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC).Paseo Manuel de Lardizabal, 4 (nearby the Facultad de Quimica), Donostia
- Add to calendar
-
iCal
We consider star-shaped block copolymers (SBC’s) with a solvophilic
core and a solvophobic tail on each arm as novel, model particles
which self-assemble into soft patchy colloids of tunable patchiness at
the single-molecule level and then into a variety of disordered and
ordered structures at finite concentrations. In particular, we use the
arm number (functionality), as well as the fraction of attractive end-
monomers, as control parameters of the macromolecules, which give rise
to various scenarios of self-assembly. By employing a variety of
computational and theoretical tools, ranging from the microscopic to
the mesoscopic, coarse-grained level in a systematic fashion, we
investigate the crossover between the formation of microstructure vs.
macroscopic phase separation, as well as the formation of gels and
networks in the system. We finally show that SBC’s can be used as
building blocks for the fabrication of open crystal structures, such
as the diamond or the simple-cubic lattice, taking advantage of the
strong correlation between single-particle patchiness and lattice
coordination at finite densities.