PTC Seminar: Design strategies for self-assembly

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• Dr Mark A. Miller, Department of Chemistry, Durham University
• Tuesday 13 February 2018, 14:00-15:00
• Haworth 203.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Dr Dwaipayan Chakrabarti.

PTC Seminar hosted by Dr Dwaipayan Chakrabarti

The self-assembly of discrete objects on the nano- to micrometre length scale can take place via a wide range of routes. For example, some virus capsids self-organise with elegant efficiency from multiple copies of the same protein. In contrast, the latest innovations in artificial self-assembly have succeeded (against expectations) in directing a unique building block to each site in complex structures. This latter development is a stride towards fully “programmable” self-assembly, where every site is individually addressed and full control is exerted over the assembly pathway.

In this talk I will test different strategies for controlling and optimising the self-assembly of discrete objects using an idealised model of particles with patterned interactions. In particular, I will examine the special challenges that come into play in the case of programmable assembly. In this limit, each building block must be encoded with enough information to find its unique location in the target structure. Furthermore, independently growing structures must avoid becoming mutually incompatible, which would frustrate the assembly process. Along the way, some new general tools for simulation and analysis will be introduced.

This talk is part of the School of Chemistry Seminars series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• Haworth 203
• School of Chemistry Seminars

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