Steering self-organisation through confinement

Steering self-organisation through confinement

Araújo, Nuno A.M. (University of Lisbon)
Janssen, Liesbeth M.C. (Eindhoven University of Technology)
Barois, Thomas (University of Bordeaux)
Boffetta, Guido (University of Turin)
Cohen, Itai (Cornell University; Cornell University Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics)
Corbetta, Alessandro (Eindhoven University of Technology)
Dauchot, Olivier (Université PSL)
Dussutour, Audrey (Université de Toulouse)
Koenderink, G.H. (TU Delft BN/Gijsje Koenderink Lab; Kavli institute of nanoscience Delft)

2023

Self-organisation is the spontaneous emergence of spatio-temporal structures and patterns from the interaction of smaller individual units. Examples are found across many scales in very different systems and scientific disciplines, from physics, materials science and robotics to biology, geophysics and astronomy. Recent research has highlighted how self-organisation can be both mediated and controlled by confinement. Confinement is an action over a system that limits its units’ translational and rotational degrees of freedom, thus also influencing the system's phase space probability density; it can function as either a catalyst or inhibitor of self-organisation. Confinement can then become a means to actively steer the emergence or suppression of collective phenomena in space and time. Here, to provide a common framework and perspective for future research, we examine the role of confinement in the self-organisation of soft-matter systems and identify overarching scientific challenges that need to be addressed to harness its full scientific and technological potential in soft matter and related fields. By drawing analogies with other disciplines, this framework will accelerate a common deeper understanding of self-organisation and trigger the development of innovative strategies to steer it using confinement, with impact on, e.g., the design of smarter materials, tissue engineering for biomedicine and in guiding active matter.

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:a83f691c-15a3-43b5-83c5-911cd2fce4b7

https://doi.org/10.1039/d2sm01562e

1744-683X

Soft Matter, 19 (9), 1695-1704

Institutional Repository

review

© 2023 Nuno A.M. Araújo, Liesbeth M.C. Janssen, Thomas Barois, Guido Boffetta, Itai Cohen, Alessandro Corbetta, Olivier Dauchot, Audrey Dussutour, G.H. Koenderink, More Authors