Nguyen TD, Schultz BA, Kotov NA, Glotzer SC. Generic, phenomenological, on-the-fly renormalized repulsion model for self-limited organization of terminal supraparticle assemblies.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2015;
112:E3161-8. [PMID:
26063616 PMCID:
PMC4485121 DOI:
10.1073/pnas.1509239112]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/14/2023] Open
Abstract
Self-limited, or terminal, supraparticles have long received great interest because of their abundance in biological systems (DNA bundles and virus capsids) and their potential use in a host of applications ranging from photonics and catalysis to encapsulation for drug delivery. Moreover, soft, uniform colloidal aggregates are a promising candidate for quasicrystal and other hierarchical assemblies. In this work, we present a generic coarse-grained model that captures the formation of self-limited assemblies observed in various soft-matter systems including nanoparticles, colloids, and polyelectrolytes. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we demonstrate that the assembly process is self-limited when the repulsion between the particles is renormalized to balance their attraction during aggregation. The uniform finite-sized aggregates are further shown to be thermodynamically stable and tunable with a single dimensionless parameter. We find large aggregates self-organize internally into a core-shell morphology and exhibit anomalous uniformity when the constituent nanoparticles have a polydisperse size distribution.
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