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SUMMARY:Programming Hierarchical Self-Assembly for Colloidal Open Crystals
  - Dr Dwaipayan Chakrabarti\, University of Birmingham
DTSTART:20181031T141500Z
DTEND:20181031T151500Z
UID:TALK108550@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Lisa Masters
DESCRIPTION:Open crystals are sparsely populated periodic structures\, whi
 ch\, when composed of colloidal particles\, are appealing for their variet
 y of applications\, for example\, as photonic materials\, phononic and mec
 hanical metamaterials\, as well as porous media [1-4]. Programming self- a
 ssembly of colloidal particles into open crystals has proved a long-standi
 ng challenge due both to the mechanical instability and lack of kinetic ac
 cessibility that colloidal open crystals typically suffer from. The issue 
 of competing polymorphs adds up to this challenge. In this presentation\, 
 I will demonstrate a hierarchical self-assembly scheme for triblock patchy
  particles\, yielding in silico colloidal open crystals via what we call c
 losed clusters\, which stop to grow beyond a certain size in the first sta
 ge and are thus self-limiting [5\,6]. Our designer patchy particles are sp
 herical in shape\, having two attractive patches at the poles across a cha
 rged middle band – a close variant of those synthesized recently [7]. By
  employing a variety of computer simulation techniques\, I will show that 
 the design space supports different closed clusters (e.g. tetrahedra or oc
 tahedra with variable valences) en route to distinct open crystals [5\,6].
  Our design rules thus open up the prospects of realising a number of coll
 oidal open crystals from designer triblock patchy particles\, including\, 
 most remarkably\, the cubic diamond crystal (see Figure 1)\, much sough-af
 ter for is attractive photonic applications.
LOCATION:Department of Chemistry\, Cambridge\, Unilever lecture theatre
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