Fascinating packing patterns of identical spherical and discotic objects on curved surfaces occur readily in nature and science. Examples include C(60) fullerenes, (1, 2) 13-atom cuboctahedral metal clusters, (3) and S-layer proteins on outer cell membranes. (4) Numerous situations with surface-arranged objects of variable size also exist, such as the lenses on insect eyes, biomineralized shells on coccolithophorids, (5) and solid-stabilized emulsion droplets (6) and bubbles. (7) The influence of size variations on these packing patterns, however, is studied sparsely. Here we investigate the packing of nanosized silica particles on the surface of polystyrene latex particles fabricated by Pickering miniemulsion polymerization of submicrometer-sized armored monomer droplets. We are able to rationalize the experimental morphology and the nearest-neighbor distribution with the help of Monte Carlo simulations. We show that broadening of the nanoparticle size distribution has pronounced effects on the self-assembled equilibrium packing structures, with original 12-point dislocations or grain-boundary scars gradually fading out.
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J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr
November 2024
University of North Carolina Eshelman School of Pharmacy, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
Background: Incomplete adherence to daily tenofovir disoproxil fumarate/emtricitabine (TDF/FTC) reduces effectiveness. Adherence biomeasures (i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFACS Appl Mater Interfaces
January 2025
Conjugated polymer donors have always been one of the important components of organic solar cells (OSCs), particularly those featuring simple synthetic routes, proper energy levels, and appropriate aggregation behavior. In this work, we employed a nonfused electron-deficient building block, dicyanobithiophene (2CT), for constructing high-performance donors. Combining this with side-chain engineering, two novel halogen-free polymer donors, PB2CT-BO and PB2CT-HD, were reported.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSoft Matter
January 2025
Department of Physics and Soft Materials Research Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
The current intense study of ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals was initiated by the observation of the same ferroelectric nematic phase in two independently discovered organic, rod-shaped, mesogenic compounds, RM734 and DIO. We recently reported that the compound RM734 also exhibits a monotropic, low-temperature, apolar phase having reentrant isotropic symmetry (the I phase), the formation of which is facilitated to a remarkable degree by doping with small (below 1%) amounts of the ionic liquid BMIM-PF. Here we report similar phenomenology in DIO, showing that this reentrant isotropic behavior is not only a property of RM734 but is rather a more general, material-independent feature of ferroelectric nematic mesogens.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSmall
January 2025
School of Electronics and Information, Northwestern Polytechnical University, 1 Dongxiang Road, Xi'an, 710129, China.
As organic solar cells (OSCs) achieve notable advancements, a significant consensus has been highlighted that the device performance is intricately linked to the active layer morphology. With conjugated molecules being widely employed, intermolecular interactions exert substantial influence over the aggregation state and morphology formation, resulting in distinct molecular packing motifs, also known as polymorphism. This phenomenon is closely associated with processing conditions and exerts a profound impact on functional properties.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHeliyon
January 2025
University of Debrecen, Faculty of Economics and Business, Institute of Marketing and Commerce, H-4032, Debrecen, Böszörményi Str. 138, Hungary.
Understanding the impact of environmental stimuli, such as nudges, on consumption behavior is crucial for developing effective dietary interventions. This study investigates the unit size effect, a behaviourally-oriented nudge, on chocolate consumption. In particular, it examines how different unit sizes and the presence or absence of packaging influence the quantity of chocolate consumed and the perceived energy intake in grams and calories.
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