Disorder and demixing in bidisperse particle systems assembling bcc crystals.

Colloidal and nanoparticle self-assembly enables the creation of ordered structures with a variety of electronic and photonic functionalities. The outcomes of the self-assembly processes used to synthesize such structures, however, strongly depend on the uniformity of the individual nanoparticles. Here, we explore the simplest form of particle size dispersity-bidispersity-and its impact on the self-assembly process.

Local Structural Features Elucidate Crystallization of Complex Structures.

Complex crystal structures are composed of multiple local environments, and how this type of order emerges spontaneously during crystal growth has yet to be fully understood. We study crystal growth across various structures and along different crystallization pathways, using self-assembly simulations of identical particles that interact via multiwell isotropic pair potentials. We apply an unsupervised machine learning method to features from bond-orientational order metrics to identify different local motifs present during a given structure's crystallization process.

Targeted Discovery of Low-Coordinated Crystal Structures via Tunable Particle Interactions.

Particles interacting via isotropic, multiwell pair potentials have been shown to self-assemble into a range of crystal structures, yet how the characteristics of the underlying interaction potential give rise to the resultant structure remains largely unknown. We have thus developed a functional form for the interaction potential in which all features can be tuned independently. We perform continuous parameter space searches by systematically changing pairs of parameters, controlling the various features of the interaction potential.

Tuning assembly structures of hard shapes in confinement interface curvature.

Assembly in confinement is a problem of great interest in colloidal structure design, plasmonics, photonics, and industrial packaging. Along with the range of design choices provided by particle shape and attraction or repulsion, confined systems add an additional layer of complexity through the interactions between particles and the container holding them. The range of possible behaviors produced by these systems remains largely unexplored, yet has profound consequences on the resultant assembled structure.

Multiscale hierarchical structures from a nanocluster mesophase.

Spontaneous hierarchical self-organization of nanometre-scale subunits into higher-level complex structures is ubiquitous in nature. The creation of synthetic nanomaterials that mimic the self-organization of complex superstructures commonly seen in biomolecules has proved challenging due to the lack of biomolecule-like building blocks that feature versatile, programmable interactions to render structural complexity. In this study, highly aligned structures are obtained from an organic-inorganic mesophase composed of monodisperse CdS magic-size cluster building blocks.

Moving beyond the constraints of chemistry via crystal structure discovery with isotropic multiwell pair potentials.

The rigid constraints of chemistry-dictated by quantum mechanics and the discrete nature of the atom-limit the set of observable atomic crystal structures. What structures are possible in the absence of these constraints? Here, we systematically crystallize one-component systems of particles interacting with isotropic multiwell pair potentials. We investigate two tunable families of pairwise interaction potentials.

Influence of Softness on the Stability of Binary Colloidal Crystals.

Mixtures of two types of nanoparticles can self-assemble into a wide variety of binary colloidal crystals (also called binary nanoparticle superlattices), which are interesting for their structural diversity and potential applications. Although so-called packing models-which usually treat the particles as "hard" with only excluded volume interactions-seem to explain many reported dense crystalline phases, these models often fail to predict the right structure. Here, we examine the role of soft repulsive interparticle interactions on binary colloidal crystals comprising two sizes of spherical particles; such "softness" can arise due to ligand shells or screened electrostatics.

Computational self-assembly of colloidal crystals from Platonic polyhedral sphere clusters.

We explore a rich phase space of crystals self-assembled from colloidal "polyhedral sphere clusters (PSCs)," each of which consists of equal-sized "halo" spheres placed at the vertices of a polyhedron such that they just touch along each edge. Such clusters, created experimentally by fusing spheres, can facilitate assembly of useful colloidal crystal symmetries not attainable by unclustered spheres. While not crucial for their self-assembly, the center of the PSC can contain a "core" particle that can be used as a scaffold to build the PSC.

Engineering entropy for the inverse design of colloidal crystals from hard shapes.

Throughout the physical sciences, entropy stands out as a pivotal but enigmatic concept that, in materials design, typically takes a backseat to energy. Here, we demonstrate how to precisely engineer entropy to achieve desired colloidal crystals via particle shapes that, importantly, can be made in the laboratory. We demonstrate the inverse design of symmetric hard particles that assemble six different target colloidal crystals due solely to entropy maximization.

Phase behavior and design rules for plastic colloidal crystals of hard polyhedra via consideration of directional entropic forces.

Plastic crystals - like liquid crystals - are mesophases that can exist between liquids and crystals and possess some of the characteristic traits of each of these states of matter. Plastic crystals exhibit translational order but orientational disorder. Here, we characterize the phase behavior in systems of hard polyhedra that self-assemble plastic face-centered cubic (pFCC) colloidal crystals.

Inverse design of simple pair potentials for the self-assembly of complex structures.

The synthesis of complex materials through the self-assembly of particles at the nanoscale provides opportunities for the realization of novel material properties. However, the inverse design process to create experimentally feasible interparticle interaction strategies is uniquely challenging. Standard methods for the optimization of isotropic pair potentials tend toward overfitting, resulting in solutions with too many features and length scales that are challenging to map to mechanistic models.

Clusters of polyhedra in spherical confinement.

Dense particle packing in a confining volume remains a rich, largely unexplored problem, despite applications in blood clotting, plasmonics, industrial packaging and transport, colloidal molecule design, and information storage. Here, we report densest found clusters of the Platonic solids in spherical confinement, for up to [Formula: see text] constituent polyhedral particles. We examine the interplay between anisotropic particle shape and isotropic 3D confinement.

More statistics on intermetallic compounds - ternary phases.

How many different intermetallic compounds are known so far, and in how many different structure types do they crystallize? What are their chemical compositions, the most abundant ones and the rarest ones? These are some of the questions we are trying to find answers for in our statistical analysis of the structures of the 20,829 intermetallic phases included in the database Pearson's Crystal Data, with the goal of gaining insight into some of their ordering principles. In the present paper, we focus on the subset of 13,026 ternary intermetallics, which crystallize in 1391 different structure types; remarkably, 667 of them have just one representative. What makes these 667 structures so unique that they are not adopted by any other of the known intermetallic compounds? Notably, ternary compounds are known in only 5109 of the 85,320 theoretically possible ternary intermetallic systems so far.

Some statistics on intermetallic compounds.

It is still largely unknown why intermetallic phases show such a large variety of crystal structures, with unit cell sizes varying between 1 and more than 20 000 atoms. The goal of our study was, therefore, to get a general overview of the symmetries, unit cell sizes, stoichiometries, most frequent structure types, and their stability fields based on the Mendeleev numbers as ordering parameters. A total of 20829 structures crystallizing in 2166 structure types have been studied for this purpose.

Gram-scale synthesis of two-dimensional polymer crystals and their structure analysis by X-ray diffraction.

The rise of graphene, a natural two-dimensional polymer (2DP) with topologically planar repeat units, has challenged synthetic chemistry, and has highlighted that accessing equivalent covalently bonded sheet-like macromolecules has, until recently, not been achieved. Here we show that non-centrosymmetric, enantiomorphic single crystals of a simple-to-make monomer can be photochemically converted into chiral 2DP crystals and cleanly reversed back to the monomer. X-ray diffraction established unequivocal structural proof for this synthetic 2DP, which has an all-carbon scaffold and can be synthesized on the gram scale.

Polynuclear iron(II)-aminotriazole spincrossover complexes (polymers) in solution.

Polynuclear spincrossover (SCO) complexes prepared by the combination of [Fe(DMF)6](2+) and NH2trz (NH2trz = 4-amino-1,2,4-triazole) were studied (2ns(-) = counterion 2-naphthalenesulfonate). It is demonstrated that these [Fe(NH2trz)3](2ns)2 complexes can be dissolved-contrary to common reported experience-in N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) and, therefore, can be conveniently processed by simple means. The resulting solutions were examined with UV/vis and X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XANES and EXAFS) as well as with small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS).

A new complex intermetallic phase in the system Al-Cu-Ta with familiar clusters and packing principles.

The structure of hP386-Al(57.4)Cu(3.6)Ta(39.

Structural building principles of complex face-centered cubic intermetallics.

Fundamental structural building principles are discussed for all 56 known intermetallic phases with approximately 400 or more atoms per unit cell and space-group symmetry F43m, Fd3m, Fd3, Fm3m or Fm3c. Despite fundamental differences in chemical composition, bonding and electronic band structure, their complex crystal structures show striking similarities indicating common building principles. We demonstrate that the structure-determining elements are flat and puckered atomic {110} layers stacked with periodicities 2p.

Large, larger, largest--a family of cluster-based tantalum copper aluminides with giant unit cells. I. Structure solution and refinement.

This is the first of two parts, where we report the structure determination of a novel family of cluster-based intermetallic phases of unprecedented complexity: cF444-Al(63.6)Ta(36.4) (AT-19), a = 19.