Regensburg 2016 – scientific programme

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PV: Plenarvorträge

PV X

PV X: Plenary Talk

Tuesday, March 8, 2016, 17:45–18:30, H1

The puzzle of Self-Assembly and the Self-Assembly of Puzzles — •Daan Frenkel — Department of Chemistry, U. Cambridge, UK

A holy grail of nano-technology is the creation of truly complex, multi-component structures by self-assembly.

Most self-assembly has focused on the creation of `structural complexity' - the assembly of complex structures, using only a small number of distinct building blocks.

In my talk, I will discuss `Addressable Complexity': the creation of structures that contain hundreds or thousands of distinct building blocks that all have to find their place in a 3D structure, like pieces in a jig-saw puzzle.

Simple model calculations allow us to understand the factors that control successful self-assembly.