Issue 30, 2017

Limiting the valence: advancements and new perspectives on patchy colloids, soft functionalized nanoparticles and biomolecules

Abstract

Limited bonding valence, usually accompanied by well-defined directional interactions and selective bonding mechanisms, is nowadays considered among the key ingredients to create complex structures with tailored properties: even though isotropically interacting units already guarantee access to a vast range of functional materials, anisotropic interactions can provide extra instructions to steer the assembly of specific architectures. The anisotropy of effective interactions gives rise to a wealth of self-assembled structures both in the realm of suitably synthesized nano- and micro-sized building blocks and in nature, where the isotropy of interactions is often a zero-th order description of the complicated reality. In this review, we span a vast range of systems characterized by limited bonding valence, from patchy colloids of new generation to polymer-based functionalized nanoparticles, DNA-based systems and proteins, and describe how the interaction patterns of the single building blocks can be designed to tailor the properties of the target final structures.

Graphical abstract: Limiting the valence: advancements and new perspectives on patchy colloids, soft functionalized nanoparticles and biomolecules

Article information

Article type
Perspective
Submitted
11 5 2017
Accepted
28 6 2017
First published
28 6 2017
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2017,19, 19847-19868

Limiting the valence: advancements and new perspectives on patchy colloids, soft functionalized nanoparticles and biomolecules

E. Bianchi, B. Capone, I. Coluzza, L. Rovigatti and P. D. J. van Oostrum, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2017, 19, 19847 DOI: 10.1039/C7CP03149A

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