On the nature of self-assembly in low-density condensed matter A classical molecular dynamics approach

Sammanfattning: The study of the physics of self-assembly in low-density condensed matter is an extremely interesting, mostly unexplored field of scientific research. The contribution reported in this thesis explains how this problem can be addressed using molecular dynamics simulation of 3D systems composed by simple, identical particles, interacting via a spherically symmetric pair potential, which belongs to the class of Dzugutov potentials. Such approach resulted in four, self-assembled archetypal structures, which are reported in the included papers I, II, III, IV. In order to produce the reported results, a major effort of software development has been done by the author, both in the simulation and the analysis programs used. This thesis will start with a brief introduction to the field, highlighting the important aspects needed to have a more complete, general understanding of the reported scientific results. Some conclusions will be drawn, together with some possible future endeavors.