Colloidal clusters

Clusters of spherical particles are called “colloidal molecules” because they adopt structures that resemble those of true molecules. In this analogy, the particles are the atoms, the attractive interactions between them are bonds, and the different...

Defining the entropy of classical particles raises a number of paradoxes and ambiguities, some of which have been known for over a century. Several, such as Gibbs' paradox, involve the fact that classical particles are distinguishable, and in textbooks...

We study experimentally what is arguably the simplest yet nontrivial colloidal system: two-dimensional clusters of six spherical particles bound by depletion interactions. These clusters have multiple, degenerate ground states whose equilibrium...

Colloidal clusters, aggregates of a few micrometer-sized spherical particles, are a model experimental system for understanding the physics of self-assembly and processes such as nucleation. Colloidal clusters are well suited for studies on these topics...

I discuss experimental progress towards developing a material with an isotropic, negative index of refraction at optical frequencies. The simplest way to make such a material is to create a metafluid, or a disordered collection of subwavelength, isotropic...

We establish size limitations for assembling structures of controlled size and shape out of colloidal particles with short-ranged interactions. Through simulations we show that structures with highly variable shapes made out of dozens of particles can...

In this thesis, I discuss engineering colloidal particles to have specific, isotropic interactions and studying their cluster geometries in equilibrium. I discuss light scattering experiments showing that a highly specific protein, Dscam, is unstable...

Using experiments and simulations, we investigate the clusters that form when colloidal spheres stick irreversibly to—or “park” on—smaller spheres. We use either oppositely charged particles or particles labeled with complementary DNA sequences, and we...

We measure all nonzero elements of the three-dimensional diffusion tensor D for clusters of colloidal spheres to a precision of 1% or better using digital holographic microscopy. We study both dimers and triangular trimers of spheres, for which no...

We discuss digital holographic microscopy (DHM), a 3D imaging technique capable of measuring the positions of micron-sized colloidal particles with nanometer precision and sub-millisecond temporal resolution. We use exact electromagnetic scattering...

The ability to design and assemble three-dimensional structures from colloidal particles is limited by the absence of specific directional bonds. As a result, complex or low-coordination structures, common in atomic and molecular systems, are rare in the...

Digital holographic microscopy is a fast three-dimensional (3D) imaging tool with many applications in soft matter physics. Recent studies have shown that electromagnetic scattering solutions can be fit to digital holograms to obtain the 3D positions of...

The energetics and assembly pathways of small clusters may yield insights into processes occurring at the earliest stages of nucleation. We use a model system consisting of micrometer-sized, spherical colloidal particles to study the structure and...

Plasmonic nanoparticle assemblies are a materials platform in which optical modes, resonant frequencies, and near-field intensities can be specified by the number and position of nanoparticles in a cluster. A current challenge is to achieve clusters with...

We discuss a new method for simultaneously probing translational, rotational, and vibrational dynamics in dilute colloidal suspensions using digital holographic microscopy (DHM). We record digital holograms of clusters of 1-μm-diameter colloidal spheres...

DNA nanotechnology provides a versatile foundation for the chemical assembly of nanostructures. Plasmonic nanoparticle assemblies are of particular interest because they can be tailored to exhibit a broad range of electromagnetic phenomena. In this Letter...

Sphere packing problems have a rich history in both mathematics and physics; yet, relatively few analytical analyses of sphere packings exist, and answers to seemingly simple questions are unknown. Here, we present an analytical method for deriving all...

The self-assembly of colloids is an alternative to top-down processing that enables the fabrication of nanostructures. We show that self-assembled clusters of metal-dielectric spheres are the basis for nanophotonic structures. By tailoring the number and...

Assemblies of strongly interacting metallic nanoparticles are the basis for plasmonic nanostructure engineering. We demonstrate that clusters of four identical spherical particles self-assembled into a close-packed asymmetric quadrumer support strong Fano...

We describe a procedure to synthesize colloidal clusters with polyhedral morphologies in high yield (liter quantities at up to 70% purity) using a combination of emulsion polymerization and inorganic surface chemistry. We show that the synthesis initially...

We have developed a new method to produce hybrid particles with polyhedral shapes in very high yield (liter quantities at up to 70% purity) using a combination of emulsion polymerization and inorganic surface chemistry. The procedure has been generalized...

We calculate the ground states of hard-sphere clusters, in which n identical hard spherical particles bind by isotropic short-ranged attraction. Combining graph theoretic enumeration with basic geometry, we analytically solve for clusters of n<=10...

I discuss how colloidal particles organize when they are confined by emulsion droplets. In these systems, the interplay between surface tension and interparticle repulsion drives the formation of complex, non-crystalline 3D arrangements. These can be...

Most of the colloidal clusters have been produced from oil-in-water emulsions with identical microspheres dispersed in oil droplets. Here, we present new types of binary colloidal clusters from phase-inverted water-in-oil emulsions using various...