Skip to main content
  • Submit
  • About
    • Editorial Board
    • PNAS Staff
    • FAQ
    • Accessibility Statement
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Site Map
  • Contact
  • Journal Club
  • Subscribe
    • Subscription Rates
    • Subscriptions FAQ
    • Open Access
    • Recommend PNAS to Your Librarian
  • Log in
  • My Cart

Main menu

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current
    • Special Feature Articles - Most Recent
    • Special Features
    • Colloquia
    • Collected Articles
    • PNAS Classics
    • List of Issues
  • Front Matter
  • News
    • For the Press
    • This Week In PNAS
    • PNAS in the News
  • Podcasts
  • Authors
    • Information for Authors
    • Editorial and Journal Policies
    • Submission Procedures
    • Fees and Licenses
  • Submit
  • About
    • Editorial Board
    • PNAS Staff
    • FAQ
    • Accessibility Statement
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Site Map
  • Contact
  • Journal Club
  • Subscribe
    • Subscription Rates
    • Subscriptions FAQ
    • Open Access
    • Recommend PNAS to Your Librarian

User menu

  • Log in
  • My Cart

Search

  • Advanced search
Home
Home

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current
    • Special Feature Articles - Most Recent
    • Special Features
    • Colloquia
    • Collected Articles
    • PNAS Classics
    • List of Issues
  • Front Matter
  • News
    • For the Press
    • This Week In PNAS
    • PNAS in the News
  • Podcasts
  • Authors
    • Information for Authors
    • Editorial and Journal Policies
    • Submission Procedures
    • Fees and Licenses

New Research In

Physical Sciences

Featured Portals

  • Physics
  • Chemistry
  • Sustainability Science

Articles by Topic

  • Applied Mathematics
  • Applied Physical Sciences
  • Astronomy
  • Computer Sciences
  • Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
  • Engineering
  • Environmental Sciences
  • Mathematics
  • Statistics

Social Sciences

Featured Portals

  • Anthropology
  • Sustainability Science

Articles by Topic

  • Economic Sciences
  • Environmental Sciences
  • Political Sciences
  • Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
  • Social Sciences

Biological Sciences

Featured Portals

  • Sustainability Science

Articles by Topic

  • Agricultural Sciences
  • Anthropology
  • Applied Biological Sciences
  • Biochemistry
  • Biophysics and Computational Biology
  • Cell Biology
  • Developmental Biology
  • Ecology
  • Environmental Sciences
  • Evolution
  • Genetics
  • Immunology and Inflammation
  • Medical Sciences
  • Microbiology
  • Neuroscience
  • Pharmacology
  • Physiology
  • Plant Biology
  • Population Biology
  • Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
  • Sustainability Science
  • Systems Biology
Research Article

Deformation and failure of curved colloidal crystal shells

Carlotta Negri, Alessandro L. Sellerio, Stefano Zapperi, and View ORCID ProfileM. Carmen Miguel
PNAS November 24, 2015 112 (47) 14545-14550; first published November 9, 2015; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1518258112
Carlotta Negri
aCenter for Complexity and Biosystems, Department of Physics, University of Milan, 20133 Milan, Italy;
bInstitute for Scientific Interchange Foundation, 10126 Turin, Italy;
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Alessandro L. Sellerio
aCenter for Complexity and Biosystems, Department of Physics, University of Milan, 20133 Milan, Italy;
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Stefano Zapperi
aCenter for Complexity and Biosystems, Department of Physics, University of Milan, 20133 Milan, Italy;
bInstitute for Scientific Interchange Foundation, 10126 Turin, Italy;
cIstituto per l’Energetica e le Interfasi, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, 20125 Milan, Italy;
dDepartment of Applied Physics, Aalto University, 11100 FI-00076 Aalto, Finland;
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
M. Carmen Miguel
eDepartament de Física Fonamental, Facultat de Física, Universitat de Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for M. Carmen Miguel
  • For correspondence: carmen.miguel@ub.edu
  1. Edited by David A. Weitz, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, and approved October 13, 2015 (received for review September 17, 2015)

  • Article
  • Figures & SI
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF
Loading

Significance

Substantial experimental and theoretical work has been devoted to understand the equilibrium properties of curved crystals, but these crystals’ stability under mechanical forces remains largely unexplored and unknown. Understanding how curved crystals can adapt their shape and resist failure is of fundamental importance because these structures are at the forefront in the drive to fabricate new functionalized self-assembled materials. Here, we address these questions by numerical simulations of the deformation of colloidal crystalline shells. Our results highlight the fundamental role played by geometrically necessary crystal defects in controlling mechanical stability and plastic rearrangements of the shell.

Abstract

Designing and controlling particle self-assembly into robust and reliable high-performance smart materials often involves crystalline ordering in curved spaces. Examples include carbon allotropes like graphene, synthetic materials such as colloidosomes, or biological systems like lipid membranes, solid domains on vesicles, or viral capsids. Despite the relevance of these structures, the irreversible deformation and failure of curved crystals is still mostly unexplored. Here, we report simulation results of the mechanical deformation of colloidal crystalline shells that illustrate the subtle role played by geometrically necessary topological defects in controlling plastic yielding and failure. We observe plastic deformation attributable to the migration and reorientation of grain boundary scars, a collective process assisted by the intermittent proliferation of disclination pairs or abrupt structural failure induced by crack nucleating at defects. Our results provide general guiding principles to optimize the structural and mechanical stability of curved colloidal crystals.

  • topological defects
  • curved crystals
  • fracture
  • plastic deformation
  • plastic avalanches

Footnotes

  • ↵1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: carmen.miguel{at}ub.edu.
  • Author contributions: C.N., A.L.S., S.Z., and M.C.M. designed research; C.N., A.L.S., S.Z., and M.C.M. performed research; C.N. and M.C.M. analyzed data; and S.Z. and M.C.M. wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

  • This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1518258112/-/DCSupplemental.

Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.

View Full Text
PreviousNext
Back to top
Article Alerts
Email Article

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on PNAS.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Deformation and failure of curved colloidal crystal shells
(Your Name) has sent you a message from PNAS
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the PNAS web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
Deformation and failure of curved crystal shells
Carlotta Negri, Alessandro L. Sellerio, Stefano Zapperi, M. Carmen Miguel
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nov 2015, 112 (47) 14545-14550; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1518258112

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Request Permissions
Share
Deformation and failure of curved crystal shells
Carlotta Negri, Alessandro L. Sellerio, Stefano Zapperi, M. Carmen Miguel
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nov 2015, 112 (47) 14545-14550; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1518258112
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Mendeley logo Mendeley
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: 112 (47)
Table of Contents

Submit

Sign up for Article Alerts

Article Classifications

  • Physical Sciences
  • Physics

Jump to section

  • Article
    • Abstract
    • Model
    • Results
    • Discussion
    • Acknowledgments
    • Footnotes
    • References
  • Figures & SI
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF

You May Also be Interested in

Abstract depiction of a guitar and musical note
Science & Culture: At the nexus of music and medicine, some see disease treatments
Although the evidence is still limited, a growing body of research suggests music may have beneficial effects for diseases such as Parkinson’s.
Image credit: Shutterstock/agsandrew.
Large piece of gold
News Feature: Tracing gold's cosmic origins
Astronomers thought they’d finally figured out where gold and other heavy elements in the universe came from. In light of recent results, they’re not so sure.
Image credit: Science Source/Tom McHugh.
Dancers in red dresses
Journal Club: Friends appear to share patterns of brain activity
Researchers are still trying to understand what causes this strong correlation between neural and social networks.
Image credit: Shutterstock/Yeongsik Im.
Yellow emoticons
Learning the language of facial expressions
Aleix Martinez explains why facial expressions often are not accurate indicators of emotion.
Listen
Past PodcastsSubscribe
Goats standing in a pin
Transplantation of sperm-producing stem cells
CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing can improve the effectiveness of spermatogonial stem cell transplantation in mice and livestock, a study finds.
Image credit: Jon M. Oatley.

Similar Articles

Site Logo
Powered by HighWire
  • Submit Manuscript
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • RSS Feeds
  • Email Alerts

Articles

  • Current Issue
  • Special Feature Articles – Most Recent
  • List of Issues

PNAS Portals

  • Anthropology
  • Chemistry
  • Classics
  • Front Matter
  • Physics
  • Sustainability Science
  • Teaching Resources

Information

  • Authors
  • Editorial Board
  • Reviewers
  • Librarians
  • Press
  • Site Map
  • PNAS Updates

Feedback    Privacy/Legal

Copyright © 2021 National Academy of Sciences. Online ISSN 1091-6490