| Abstract
| - Certain emerging fields of nanotechnology depend on self-assembly processes that lead tomolecular structures which are organized and ordered or disorganized and disordered. Manysuch processes can be understood as combinations of nucleation, reversible growth, and reversibleaggregation. We develop a descriptive theoretical framework through population balances forthe cluster mass distribution and show the formulation of its mass moments. Calculations forrelaxation to equilibrium show the effects of aggregation, deaggregation, dissolution, clustergrowth by monomer addition, and nucleation, as either single processes or various combinations.Competition among the processes yields a variety of different behaviors that have been observedin nature and in the laboratory. Problems that can hinder self-organization processes includecoarsening (Ostwald ripening) and glasslike phase transition (noncrystalline solidification). Bothof these and other processes can be described by the kinetics of cluster distributions and thedynamics of their moments.
|
