The importance of non-isotropic interactions is now well established in soft matter. We are currently investigating numerically and theoretically the properties of different types of particles that are non-spherical in shape (e.g. liquid crystals) and in interactions (patchy colloids with or without chirality).
– Simulating the pitch sensitivity of twisted nematics of patchy rods
[S. Ruzicka and H. H. Wensink Soft Matter 12, 5205 (2016)]
– Designing slower glasses by manipulating their local structure
[S. Marín Aguilar, H. H. Wensink, G. Foffi, and F. Smallenburg arXiv:1812.00764 (2018)]
– Hybrid molecular-colloidal liquid crystals
[H. Mundoor et al. , Science 360, 768 (2018)]
– Entropic patchiness drives multi-phase coexistence in discotic colloid-depletant mixtures
[Á. González García et al. Sci. Rep. 7, 17058 (2017)]
– Revealing a Vacancy Analog of the Crowdion Interstitial in Simple Cubic Crystals
[B. van der Meer et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 258001 (2018)]
– Liquid crystals of hard rectangles on flat and cylindrical manifolds
[C. E. Sitta et al.,Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 20, 5285 (2018)]