Particle shape optimization in colloidal clusters for structural colour applications

Structural colour is abundant in nature and has been extensively explored using colloidal clusters formed of spherical particles in both experiment and simulation. As compared to pigment based colour, structural colour is more robust to degradation and has the potential for multifunctional benefits. Here we apply digital alchemy, an inverse design technique for uncovering the thermodynamically optimal building blocks of a target structure, to the established cluster formations most investigated in structural colour research, icosahedral colloidal clusters and onion-like supraball clusters, as well as a 256-particle face-centered cubic system. Our objective is to characterize the optimal building block differences between colloidal cluster systems at scales of 135–851 particles. We find that increasing cluster size for both icosahedral colloidal clusters and onion-like supraball clusters is associated with higher sphericity and shows no consistent shape signature differences between the cluster types’ building blocks. The largest discrepancies occur in the smallest cluster sizes, suggesting future work below this range. The use of spherical particles is therefore a robust choice in the formation of colloidal clusters for structural colour applications with evaporation kinetics, rather than particle shape, acts as the differentiator between cluster types.

Department dc:contributor.department

Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy

Year dc:date.issued

2026

Author dc:creator

• Schnekenburger, Elizabeth James

Advisor dc:contributor.supervisor

• van Anders, Greg

• Materials Physics
• Hard Particle Monte Carlo Simulations
• Structural Colour
• Digital Alchemy
• Colloidal Clusters

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1974/36507

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:queensu.scholaris.ca:1974/36507