My main area of research is studying the energy landscapes of model nanoscale systems that can be termed self-assembling. Unfortunately, the term 'self-assembly' is a very fashionable word that is highly overused. In order to avoid any confusion, we define systems as 'self-assembling', if they have well-defined global minima, and other stable structures (minima) on their potential energy landscapes can find their way to the global minimum climbing only low barriers.
The importance of understanding self-assembly in general is far-reaching, having implications in nanotechnology, medicine, pharmaceutics etc. Using theoretical approaches can give important insights into the overall process of assembly, and explain why certain systems form particular structures easily over a wide range of temperatures, while others don't.
During my PhD, I studied the effects of shape and interaction anisotropies of the building blocks on the self-assembling characteristics of their clusters. By using and developing new model potentials, I created building blocks that self-assemble into helices, icosahedral and non-icosahedral shells, tubes, spirals, and other exotic morphologies. My current 'hot topic' is virus capsid assembly.
For some nice images and videos about self-assembled structures see my media section. A podcast interview with me about my recent paper in ACS Nano can be found here (Episode 30, January 2010).
Recommended papers:
C. J. Forman, S. N. Fejer, D. Chakrabarti, P. Barker and D. J. Wales, J. Phys. Chem. B, 117, 7918-7928 (2013)
Local frustration determines molecular and macroscopic helix structures
(also featured on the cover of the journal, July 4 2013)
S. N. Fejer, D. Chakrabarti and D. J. Wales, ACS Nano, 4, 219-228 (2010) - Featured paper of the January issue of ACS Nano
Emergent complexity from simple anisotropic building blocks: Shells, tubes and spirals
D. Chakrabarti, S. N. Fejer and D. J. Wales, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 106, 20164-20167 (2009)
Rational design of helical architectures
S. N. Fejer and D. J. Wales, Phys. Rev. Lett. 99 (8), 086106 (2007).
Helix self-assembly from anisotropic molecules
Journal cover pages:
Hi. I'm on a mission to build a research institute in Sfantu Gheorghe, Romania, which aims to carry out cutting-edge research in computational nanotechnology and nanomedicine. I am also CEO of Promedical Center, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. I did my PhD in computational chemistry in the Wales group at the University of Cambridge, and was a young research fellow in the group of Bela Viskolcz at the University of Szeged, Hungary. On this page you can find out more about me and my research.
