Physical Chemistry/Theoretical Chemistry

The group research agenda covers areas of soft condensed matter that are common to physics, biology, chemistry and materials science.

Broadly speaking, we are interested in those physical systems where non trivial collective behavior emerges from the competition among elasticity, electrostatics and entropy. Systems under scrutiny include synthetic/bio-polymers, artificial/biological membranes, and complex fluids.

We are currently exploring several physical processes involved in the intra and extracellular traffic in Eukaryotic cells. This includes protein organization and structure formation in phospholipid bilayers and translocation of large molecules, such as DNA and RNA, through a nanopore.

But we are also interested in understanding and predicting nucleation pathways of crystal formation of globular proteins and functionalized colloidal particles.

. C. Pàmies and A. Cacciuto. "Reshaping elastic nanotubes via self-assembly of surface-adhesive nanoparticles". Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 045702 (2011) (Cover paper of the weekly issue). A. Šarić and A. Cacciuto. "Particle self-assembly on soft elastic shells." Soft Matter 7, 1874,(2011). W. L. Miller and A. Cacciuto. "On the phase behavior of hard aspherical particles". J. Chem. Phys. 133, 234903 (2010). W. L. Miller and A. Cacciuto. "Exploiting classical nucleation theory for reverse self-assembly". J. Chem. Phys. 133, 234108 (2010). (Selected for Virtual Journal of Nanoscale Science & Technology). A. Šarić, B. Bozorgui, and A. Cacciuto. "Packing of soft asymmetric dumbbells". J. Phys. Chem. B (2010). A. Šarić, J. C. Pàmies, and A. Cacciuto. "Effective elasticity of a flexible filament bound to a deformable cylindrical surface." Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 226101 (2010). W. L. Miller, B. Bozorgui, and A. Cacciuto. "Crystallization of hard aspherical particles". J. Chem. Phys. 132, 134901 (2010). B. Bozorgui, M. Sen, W. L. Miller, J. C. Pàmies, and A. Cacciuto. "Phase behavior of repulsive polymer-tethered colloids". J. Chem. Phys. 132, 014901 (2010). W. L. Miller and A. Cacciuto. "Hierarchical self-assembly of asymmetric amphiphatic spherical colloidal particles". Phys. Rev. E 80, 021404 (2009). (Selected for Virtual Journal of Biological Physics Research). J. C. Pàmies, A. Cacciuto, and D. Frenkel. "Phase diagram of Hertzian spheres". J. Chem. Phys. 131, 044514 (2009). D. A. Goldfeld and A. Cacciuto. "Packaging of a polyelectrolyte into a neutral spherical cavity". Macromolecules 42 (13) 4874 (2009). L. Hong, A. Cacciuto, E. Luijten, and S. Granick. "Clusters of amphiphilic colloidal spheres". Langmuir 24 (3) 621 (2008). E. Luijten and A. Cacciuto. "Translocation of polymers out of confined geometries". Comp. Phys. Comm. 177, 150 (2007). Hong L., Cacciuto A., Luijten E. and Granick S., "Clusters of Charged Janus Spheres", Nano Letters 6 (11) 2510 (2006) Cacciuto A. and Luijten E., "Self-avoiding flexible polymers under spherical confinement", Nano Letters 6 (5) 901 (2006) - (Cover paper of the issue) Cacciuto A., Auer S. and Frenkel D., "Breakdown of Classical Nucleation Theory near Isostructural Phase Transitions", Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 166105 (2004) Cacciuto A., Auer S. and Frenkel D., "Onset of heterogeneous crystal nucleation in colloidal suspensions", Nature 428, 404 (2004) Bausch A.R., Bowick M.J., Cacciuto A., Dinsmore A.D., Hsu H.S., Nelson D.R.,Nikolaides M.J., Travesset A., Weitz D.A. ,"Grain Boundary Scars and Spherical Crystallography", Science 299, 1716 (2003)