Hierarchical Self-Assembly of Asymmetric Amphiphatic Spherical Colloidal Particles

TL;DR

This study uses molecular dynamics simulations to explore how the size of hydrophobic regions in amphiphatic spherical colloidal particles influences their self-assembly pathways, resulting in diverse structures including hollow cages.

Contribution

It provides a detailed phase diagram of self-assembled structures based on hydrophobic size and uncovers a novel cage formation phase.

Findings

Identification of various self-assembled phases

Discovery of a narrow region forming hollow cages

Correlation between local interactions and final structures

Abstract

From dumbbells to FCC crystals, we study the self-assembly pathway of amphiphatic, spherical colloidal particles as a function of the size of the hydrophobic region using molecular dynamics simulations. Specifically, we analyze how local inter-particle interactions correlate to the final self-assembled aggregate and how they affect the dynamical pathway of structure formation. We present a detailed diagram separating the many phases that we find for different sizes of the hydrophobic area, and uncover a narrow region where particles self-assemble into hollow, faceted cages that could potentially find interesting engineering applications.