DOI: 10.1126/science.1086189. Dense Packing and Symmetry in Small Clusters of Microspheres

Dense Packing and Symmetry in Small Clusters of Microspheres

10.1126/science.1086189

Crossref journal-article

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Science (221)

Abstract

When small numbers of colloidal microspheres are attached to the surfaces of liquid emulsion droplets, removing fluid from the droplets leads to packings of spheres that minimize the second moment of the mass distribution. The structures of the packings range from sphere doublets, triangles, and tetrahedra to exotic polyhedra not found in infinite lattice packings, molecules, or minimum–potential energy clusters. The emulsion system presents a route to produce newcolloidal structures and a means to study howdifferent physical constraints affect symmetry in small parcels of matter.

Bibliography

Manoharan, V. N., Elsesser, M. T., & Pine, D. J. (2003). Dense Packing and Symmetry in Small Clusters of Microspheres. Science, 301(5632), 483â487.

Authors 3

Vinothan N. Manoharan (first)
Mark T. Elsesser (additional)
David J. Pine (additional)

References 32 Referenced 963

J. H. Conway N. J. A. Sloane Sphere Packings Lattices and Groups (Springer New York ed. 3 1999). (10.1007/978-1-4757-6568-7)
10.1007/BF02770863
10.1007/PL00009312
L. Fejes-Tóth Regular Figures (Macmillan New York 1964).
10.1038/35048537
10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.075507
10.1103/PhysRevLett.90.195504
10.1016/S0081-1947(08)60079-X
10.1038/23819
10.1103/PhysRevLett.86.111
10.1007/BF02570704
Polydispersity is defined as the relative standard deviation in the particle size distribution.
Materials and methods are available as supporting material on Science Online.
10.1016/S0001-8686(98)00071-2
10.1016/0021-9797(89)90301-9
10.1016/0166-6622(89)80271-9
R. Hinton M. Dobrota Density Gradient Centrifugation vol. 6 part 1 of Laboratory Techniques in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (Elsevier/North-Holland New York 1976). (10.1016/S0075-7535(08)70154-2)
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10.1021/ic50095a046
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10.1007/BF02574046
J. M. Wills, Math. Intell.20, 16 (1998). / Math. Intell. (1998)
A. Boerdijk, Philips Res. Rep.7, 303 (1952). / Philips Res. Rep. (1952)
B. W. Clare, D. L. Kepert, Proc. R. Soc. London Ser. AA405, 329 (1986). (10.1098/rspa.1986.0056) / Proc. R. Soc. London Ser. A (1986)
10.1103/PhysRevLett.84.2997
10.1002/1521-4095(200102)13:4<267::AID-ADMA267>3.0.CO;2-9
10.1006/jcis.1998.5428
10.1364/JOSAA.13.002266
We thank V. Breedveld and D. Roux for helpful discussions. Supported by NSF under grant numbers CTS-0221809 and DGE-9987618 and by Unilever Corporation.

Dates

Type	When
Created	22 years, 1 month ago (July 24, 2003, 3:56 p.m.)
Deposited	1 year, 7 months ago (Jan. 9, 2024, 9:41 p.m.)
Indexed	6 days, 4 hours ago (Aug. 21, 2025, 2:04 p.m.)
Issued	22 years, 1 month ago (July 25, 2003)
Published	22 years, 1 month ago (July 25, 2003)
Published Print	22 years, 1 month ago (July 25, 2003)

Funders 0

None

BibTeX

@article{Manoharan_2003, title={Dense Packing and Symmetry in Small Clusters of Microspheres}, volume={301}, ISSN={1095-9203}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1086189}, DOI={10.1126/science.1086189}, number={5632}, journal={Science}, publisher={American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)}, author={Manoharan, Vinothan N. and Elsesser, Mark T. and Pine, David J.}, year={2003}, month=jul, pages={483–487} }

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