Jeremie Palacci, Physics Department, UCSD – APS Colloquium

Title: Carving non-equilibrium pathways to control self-assembly

Abstract: Active particles are microscopic particles, which can inject energy locally and made available by recent progress in colloidal science. They are ideal “pump-probes” to explore the emergent properties in non-equilibrium soft systems and control the behavior of soft matter and self-assembly at the microscale. In this talk, I will demonstrate how we can use dissipative building blocks to control self-assembly and show the robust formation of dynamical superstructures using active particles that consume fuel to carve non-equilibrium pathways. Using tailored particles, we will build self-spinning microgears and demonstrate that non-equilibrium phenomena can be harnessed to shape interactions and form hierarchical structures [1]. Next, I will show how we can active particles added to a material to regulates its activity internally and boost the annealing of a colloidal monolayer [2]. It opens a broad range of novel opportunities to thermal treatments, where the properties of matter are not controlled macroscopically but microscopically and in real time by active dopants.

[1] Aubret et al, Nature Physics, 2018

[2] Ramananarivo et al, submitted