In conventional research, colloidal particles grafted with single stranded DNA are allowed to self-assemble, before experiments are used to determine the resulting crystal structures. While this Edisonian approach is useful for a posteriori understanding the factors governing assembly, it does not allow one to a priori design DNA-grafted colloids that will assemble into desired structures. Here we address precisely this 'design' issue, and present an experimentally validated evolutionary optimization methodology that is not only able to reproduce the original ``phase diagram' detailing regions of known crystals, but it also able to elucidate several perviously unobserved structures. While experimental validation of these new structures is outstanding, we propose that this Genetic Algorithm based methodology is a promising and rational materials 'design' paradigm with broad potential applications.

Designing DNA-grafted particles that self-assemble into desired crystalline structures using the genetic algorithm

248th National Meeting (2014)

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