(579f) Designer Colloidal Matter

Colloids have been successfully used as condensed matter model systems for studying fundamental aspects of equilibrium phase behavior, dynamic processes such as the glass transition, as well as for examining systems far out of equilibrium. Recently, a growing interest in designing and synthesizing complex colloidal building blocks is fuelled by a demand for new types materials, where novel collective properties can emerge not only from the shape, and interactions between the particles, but also from their hierarchical structural ordering. In this talk, we present novel design strategies for developing new passive colloidal model systems using building blocks of complex shapes in combination with tailor-made interaction potentials. Using these design strategies, Idemonstrate that the self-assembly process can be controlled, leading to structures such as 1D permanent colloidal bead chains [1], 1D flexible stacks of gold nano-platelets [2], 2D hexagonal sheets [3], and 3D rotator phases [4].

References:

[1]. H. R. Vutukuri, A. F. Demirörs, B. Peng, P. D. J. van Oostrum, A. Imhof, and A. van Blaaderen; Colloidal analogues of charged and uncharged polymer chains with tunable stiffness, AngewandteChemie Int. Ed. 51, 11249 (2012).

[2]. H. R. Vutukuri, S. Badiare, D. Winter, A. Imhof, and A. van Blaaderen, Directed self-assembly of micron-sized gold nanoplaelets into oriented flexible stacks with tunable interpolate distance, NanoLetters, 15, 5617 (2015).

[3]. M. E. Leunissen, H. R. Vutukuri, and A. van Blaaderen; Directing colloidal self- assembly with biaxial electric fields, Advanced Materials 21, 3116 (2009).

[4]. H. R. Vutukuri, A. Imhof, and A. van Blaaderen, Fabrication of polyhedral particles from spherical particles and their self-assembly into rotator phases, Angewandte Chemie Int. Ed. 13830(2014).