Title: Packing of Non-spherical Dumbbell Particles with Controlled Geometry

Author (Talk): Jingyu Park, Yale University

Abstract:

We observe the packing of non-spherical dumbbell particles, aiming at understanding how packing depends on the geometry of the particles. We synthesize micron-sized dumbbell particles through 2-step seeded polymerization. Varying the concentration of crosslinker in each step, we can control the aspect ratio of resulting dumbbell particles from 1.0 ~ 1.5. Depending on the particle geometry we find that various packing structures can be obtained. Controlled packing of these non-spherical particles will allow a wide range of potential applications, such as engineered photonic crystals.