The Statistical Mechanics of Dynamic Pathways to Self-assembly

TL;DR

This paper reviews the physical characteristics of self-assembly pathways across various systems, emphasizing common features and the need for advanced theoretical descriptions, especially far-from-equilibrium processes.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the physical features of self-assembly pathways and highlights the importance of developing theories for far-from-equilibrium processes.

Findings

Identification of common features in self-assembly pathways

Summary of existing theoretical models

Highlighting the importance of far-from-equilibrium descriptions

Abstract

We describe some of the important physical characteristics of the `pathways', i.e. dynamical processes, by which molecular, nanoscale and micron-scale self-assembly occurs. We highlight the fact that there exist features of self-assembly pathways that are common to a wide range of physical systems, even though those systems may be different in respect of their microscopic details. We summarize some existing theoretical descriptions of self-assembly pathways, and highlight areas -- notably, the description of self-assembly pathways that occur `far' from equilibrium -- that are likely to become increasingly important.