Macromolecular crowding in chiral assembly of ellipsoidal nanoparticles.
J Chem Phys
; 160(5)2024 Feb 07.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38341709
ABSTRACT
Anisotropic colloidal particles have the ability to self-assemble into cholesteric structures. We used molecular dynamics to simulate the self-assembly of ellipsoidal particles with the objective to establish a general framework to reveal the primary factors driving chiral interactions. To characterize these interactions, we introduce a characteristic parameter following the crowding factor (CF) theory. Our simulations and statistical analysis showed good agreement with the CF theory; at the early stages of the assembly process, the ellipsoidal particles go through a critical aggregation point followed by further clustering toward nematic order. Furthermore, we demonstrate that under high CF conditions, small initial clusters may induce a chiral twist, which subsequently forms a cholesteric structure with no directional preference in higher organization states.
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MEDLINE
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2024
Tipo de documento:
Article