(749e) Self-Assembly of Open Structures Using Depletion
AIChE Annual Meeting
2017
2017 Annual Meeting
Engineering Sciences and Fundamentals
Directed and Self Assembly of Colloids
Thursday, November 2, 2017 - 4:15pm to 4:30pm
Depletion is a universal mechanism to induce order in colloidal self-assembly.
In the absence of explicitly attractive forces or patchy interactions,
anisotropic colloids usually crystallize into close-packed structures. Open
structures are of high interest for applications for example as photonic
crystals. Here we investigate the depletion-driven self-assembly of faceted
colloids using Monte Carlo simulations. We find that such
colloids can form open structures purely from hard shape and depletant
entropy, as well as complex, close-packed unit cells. Our highly efficient simulation
algorithm can readily be used to study the self-assembly of (almost) arbitrary convex
and concave shapes with depletion.