@inproceedings{10666,
  abstract     = {Adversarial training is an effective method to train deep learning models that are resilient to norm-bounded perturbations, with the cost of nominal performance drop. While adversarial training appears to enhance the robustness and safety of a deep model deployed in open-world decision-critical applications, counterintuitively, it induces undesired behaviors in robot learning settings. In this paper, we show theoretically and experimentally that neural controllers obtained via adversarial training are subjected to three types of defects, namely transient, systematic, and conditional errors. We first generalize adversarial training to a safety-domain optimization scheme allowing for more generic specifications. We then prove that such a learning process tends to cause certain error profiles. We support our theoretical results by a thorough experimental safety analysis in a robot-learning task. Our results suggest that adversarial training is not yet ready for robot learning.},
  author       = {Lechner, Mathias and Hasani, Ramin and Grosu, Radu and Rus, Daniela and Henzinger, Thomas A},
  booktitle    = {2021 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation},
  isbn         = {978-1-7281-9078-5},
  issn         = {2577-087X},
  location     = {Xi'an, China},
  pages        = {4140--4147},
  publisher    = {IEEE},
  title        = {{Adversarial training is not ready for robot learning}},
  doi          = {10.1109/ICRA48506.2021.9561036},
  year         = {2021},
}

@inproceedings{9678,
  abstract     = {We introduce a new graph problem, the token dropping game, and we show how to solve it efficiently in a distributed setting. We use the token dropping game as a tool to design an efficient distributed algorithm for stable orientations and more generally for locally optimal semi-matchings. The prior work by Czygrinow et al. (DISC 2012) finds a stable orientation in O(Δ^5) rounds in graphs of maximum degree Δ, while we improve it to O(Δ^4) and also prove a lower bound of Ω(Δ). For the more general problem of locally optimal semi-matchings, the prior upper bound is O(S^5) and our new algorithm runs in O(C · S^4) rounds, which is an improvement for C = o(S); here C and S are the maximum degrees of customers and servers, respectively.},
  author       = {Brandt, Sebastian and Keller, Barbara and Rybicki, Joel and Suomela, Jukka and Uitto, Jara},
  booktitle    = {Annual ACM Symposium on Parallelism in Algorithms and Architectures},
  isbn         = {9781450380706},
  location     = { Virtual Event, United States},
  pages        = {129--139},
  publisher    = {Association for Computing Machinery},
  title        = {{Efficient load-balancing through distributed token dropping}},
  doi          = {10.1145/3409964.3461785},
  year         = {2021},
}

@inproceedings{10667,
  abstract     = {Bayesian neural networks (BNNs) place distributions over the weights of a neural network to model uncertainty in the data and the network's prediction. We consider the problem of verifying safety when running a Bayesian neural network policy in a feedback loop with infinite time horizon systems. Compared to the existing sampling-based approaches, which are inapplicable to the infinite time horizon setting, we train a separate deterministic neural network that serves as an infinite time horizon safety certificate. In particular, we show that the certificate network guarantees the safety of the system over a subset of the BNN weight posterior's support. Our method first computes a safe weight set and then alters the BNN's weight posterior to reject samples outside this set. Moreover, we show how to extend our approach to a safe-exploration reinforcement learning setting, in order to avoid unsafe trajectories during the training of the policy. We evaluate our approach on a series of reinforcement learning benchmarks, including non-Lyapunovian safety specifications.},
  author       = {Lechner, Mathias and Žikelić, Ðorđe and Chatterjee, Krishnendu and Henzinger, Thomas A},
  booktitle    = {35th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems},
  issn         = {1049-5258},
  location     = {Virtual},
  publisher    = {Neural Information Processing Systems Foundation},
  title        = {{Infinite time horizon safety of Bayesian neural networks}},
  doi          = {10.48550/arXiv.2111.03165},
  year         = {2021},
}

@inproceedings{10670,
  abstract     = {Imitation learning enables high-fidelity, vision-based learning of policies within rich, photorealistic environments. However, such techniques often rely on traditional discrete-time neural models and face difficulties in generalizing to domain shifts by failing to account for the causal relationships between the agent and the environment. In this paper, we propose a theoretical and experimental framework for learning causal representations using continuous-time neural networks, specifically over their discrete-time counterparts. We evaluate our method in the context of visual-control learning of drones over a series of complex tasks, ranging from short- and long-term navigation, to chasing static and dynamic objects through photorealistic environments. Our results demonstrate that causal continuous-time
deep models can perform robust navigation tasks, where advanced recurrent models fail. These models learn complex causal control representations directly from raw visual inputs and scale to solve a variety of tasks using imitation learning.},
  author       = {Vorbach, Charles J and Hasani, Ramin and Amini, Alexander and Lechner, Mathias and Rus, Daniela},
  booktitle    = {35th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems},
  issn         = {1049-5258},
  location     = {Virtual},
  publisher    = {Neural Information Processing Systems Foundation},
  title        = {{Causal navigation by continuous-time neural networks}},
  year         = {2021},
}

@article{9293,
  abstract     = {We consider planning problems for graphs, Markov Decision Processes (MDPs), and games on graphs in an explicit state space. While graphs represent the most basic planning model, MDPs represent interaction with nature and games on graphs represent interaction with an adversarial environment. We consider two planning problems with k different target sets: (a) the coverage problem asks whether there is a plan for each individual target set; and (b) the sequential target reachability problem asks whether the targets can be reached in a given sequence. For the coverage problem, we present a linear-time algorithm for graphs, and quadratic conditional lower bound for MDPs and games on graphs. For the sequential target problem, we present a linear-time algorithm for graphs, a sub-quadratic algorithm for MDPs, and a quadratic conditional lower bound for games on graphs. Our results with conditional lower bounds, based on the boolean matrix multiplication (BMM) conjecture and strong exponential time hypothesis (SETH), establish (i) model-separation results showing that for the coverage problem MDPs and games on graphs are harder than graphs, and for the sequential reachability problem games on graphs are harder than MDPs and graphs; and (ii) problem-separation results showing that for MDPs the coverage problem is harder than the sequential target problem.},
  author       = {Chatterjee, Krishnendu and Dvořák, Wolfgang and Henzinger, Monika H and Svozil, Alexander},
  issn         = {0004-3702},
  journal      = {Artificial Intelligence},
  number       = {8},
  publisher    = {Elsevier},
  title        = {{Algorithms and conditional lower bounds for planning problems}},
  doi          = {10.1016/j.artint.2021.103499},
  volume       = {297},
  year         = {2021},
}

@inproceedings{9441,
  abstract     = {Isomanifolds are the generalization of isosurfaces to arbitrary dimension and codimension, i.e. submanifolds of ℝ^d defined as the zero set of some multivariate multivalued smooth function f: ℝ^d → ℝ^{d-n}, where n is the intrinsic dimension of the manifold. A natural way to approximate a smooth isomanifold M is to consider its Piecewise-Linear (PL) approximation M̂ based on a triangulation 𝒯 of the ambient space ℝ^d. In this paper, we describe a simple algorithm to trace isomanifolds from a given starting point. The algorithm works for arbitrary dimensions n and d, and any precision D. Our main result is that, when f (or M) has bounded complexity, the complexity of the algorithm is polynomial in d and δ = 1/D (and unavoidably exponential in n). Since it is known that for δ = Ω (d^{2.5}), M̂ is O(D²)-close and isotopic to M, our algorithm produces a faithful PL-approximation of isomanifolds of bounded complexity in time polynomial in d. Combining this algorithm with dimensionality reduction techniques, the dependency on d in the size of M̂ can be completely removed with high probability. We also show that the algorithm can handle isomanifolds with boundary and, more generally, isostratifolds. The algorithm for isomanifolds with boundary has been implemented and experimental results are reported, showing that it is practical and can handle cases that are far ahead of the state-of-the-art. },
  author       = {Boissonnat, Jean-Daniel and Kachanovich, Siargey and Wintraecken, Mathijs},
  booktitle    = {37th International Symposium on Computational Geometry},
  isbn         = {978-3-95977-184-9},
  issn         = {1868-8969},
  location     = {Virtual},
  pages        = {17:1--17:16},
  publisher    = {Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik},
  title        = {{Tracing isomanifolds in Rd in time polynomial in d using Coxeter-Freudenthal-Kuhn triangulations}},
  doi          = {10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2021.17},
  volume       = {189},
  year         = {2021},
}

@inproceedings{9345,
  abstract     = {Modeling a crystal as a periodic point set, we present a fingerprint consisting of density functionsthat facilitates the efficient search for new materials and material properties. We prove invarianceunder isometries, continuity, and completeness in the generic case, which are necessary featuresfor the reliable comparison of crystals. The proof of continuity integrates methods from discretegeometry and lattice theory, while the proof of generic completeness combines techniques fromgeometry with analysis. The fingerprint has a fast algorithm based on Brillouin zones and relatedinclusion-exclusion formulae. We have implemented the algorithm and describe its application tocrystal structure prediction.},
  author       = {Edelsbrunner, Herbert and Heiss, Teresa and  Kurlin , Vitaliy and Smith, Philip and Wintraecken, Mathijs},
  booktitle    = {37th International Symposium on Computational Geometry},
  issn         = {1868-8969},
  location     = {Virtual},
  pages        = {32:1--32:16},
  publisher    = {Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik},
  title        = {{The density fingerprint of a periodic point set}},
  doi          = {10.4230/LIPIcs.SoCG.2021.32},
  volume       = {189},
  year         = {2021},
}

@inproceedings{10041,
  abstract     = {Yao’s garbling scheme is one of the most fundamental cryptographic constructions. Lindell and Pinkas (Journal of Cryptograhy 2009) gave a formal proof of security in the selective setting where the adversary chooses the challenge inputs before seeing the garbled circuit assuming secure symmetric-key encryption (and hence one-way functions). This was followed by results, both positive and negative, concerning its security in the, stronger, adaptive setting. Applebaum et al. (Crypto 2013) showed that it cannot satisfy adaptive security as is, due to a simple incompressibility argument. Jafargholi and Wichs (TCC 2017) considered a natural adaptation of Yao’s scheme (where the output mapping is sent in the online phase, together with the garbled input) that circumvents this negative result, and proved that it is adaptively secure, at least for shallow circuits. In particular, they showed that for the class of circuits of depth   δ , the loss in security is at most exponential in   δ . The above results all concern the simulation-based notion of security. In this work, we show that the upper bound of Jafargholi and Wichs is basically optimal in a strong sense. As our main result, we show that there exists a family of Boolean circuits, one for each depth  δ∈N , such that any black-box reduction proving the adaptive indistinguishability of the natural adaptation of Yao’s scheme from any symmetric-key encryption has to lose a factor that is exponential in   δ√ . Since indistinguishability is a weaker notion than simulation, our bound also applies to adaptive simulation. To establish our results, we build on the recent approach of Kamath et al. (Eprint 2021), which uses pebbling lower bounds in conjunction with oracle separations to prove fine-grained lower bounds on loss in cryptographic security.},
  author       = {Kamath Hosdurg, Chethan and Klein, Karen and Pietrzak, Krzysztof Z and Wichs, Daniel},
  booktitle    = {41st Annual International Cryptology Conference},
  isbn         = {978-3-030-84244-4},
  issn         = {1611-3349},
  location     = {Virtual},
  pages        = {486--515},
  publisher    = {Springer Nature},
  title        = {{Limits on the Adaptive Security of Yao’s Garbling}},
  doi          = {10.1007/978-3-030-84245-1_17},
  volume       = {12826},
  year         = {2021},
}

@phdthesis{10035,
  abstract     = {Many security definitions come in two flavors: a stronger “adaptive” flavor, where the adversary can arbitrarily make various choices during the course of the attack, and a weaker “selective” flavor where the adversary must commit to some or all of their choices a-priori. For example, in the context of identity-based encryption, selective security requires the adversary to decide on the identity of the attacked party at the very beginning of the game whereas adaptive security allows the attacker to first see the master public key and some secret keys before making this choice. Often, it appears to be much easier to achieve selective security than it is to achieve adaptive security. A series of several recent works shows how to cleverly achieve adaptive security in several such scenarios including generalized selective decryption [Pan07][FJP15], constrained PRFs [FKPR14], and Yao’s garbled circuits [JW16]. Although the above works expressed vague intuition that they share a common technique, the connection was never made precise. In this work we present a new framework (published at Crypto ’17 [JKK+17a]) that connects all of these works and allows us to present them in a unified and simplified fashion. Having the framework in place, we show how to achieve adaptive security for proxy re-encryption schemes (published at PKC ’19 [FKKP19]) and provide the first adaptive security proofs for continuous group key agreement protocols (published at S&P ’21 [KPW+21]). Questioning optimality of our framework, we then show that currently used proof techniques cannot lead to significantly better security guarantees for "graph-building" games (published at TCC ’21 [KKPW21a]). These games cover generalized selective decryption, as well as the security of prominent constructions for constrained PRFs, continuous group key agreement, and proxy re-encryption. Finally, we revisit the adaptive security of Yao’s garbled circuits and extend the analysis of Jafargholi and Wichs in two directions: While they prove adaptive security only for a modified construction with increased online complexity, we provide the first positive results for the original construction by Yao (published at TCC ’21 [KKP21a]). On the negative side, we prove that the results of Jafargholi and Wichs are essentially optimal by showing that no black-box reduction can provide a significantly better security bound (published at Crypto ’21 [KKPW21c]).},
  author       = {Klein, Karen},
  issn         = {2663-337X},
  pages        = {276},
  publisher    = {Institute of Science and Technology Austria},
  title        = {{On the adaptive security of graph-based games}},
  doi          = {10.15479/at:ista:10035},
  year         = {2021},
}

@inproceedings{11453,
  abstract     = {Neuronal computations depend on synaptic connectivity and intrinsic electrophysiological properties. Synaptic connectivity determines which inputs from presynaptic neurons are integrated, while cellular properties determine how inputs are filtered over time. Unlike their biological counterparts, most computational approaches to learning in simulated neural networks are limited to changes in synaptic connectivity. However, if intrinsic parameters change, neural computations are altered drastically. Here, we include the parameters that determine the intrinsic properties,
e.g., time constants and reset potential, into the learning paradigm. Using sparse feedback signals that indicate target spike times, and gradient-based parameter updates, we show that the intrinsic parameters can be learned along with the synaptic weights to produce specific input-output functions. Specifically, we use a teacher-student paradigm in which a randomly initialised leaky integrate-and-fire or resonate-and-fire neuron must recover the parameters of a teacher neuron. We show that complex temporal functions can be learned online and without backpropagation through time, relying on event-based updates only. Our results are a step towards online learning of neural computations from ungraded and unsigned sparse feedback signals with a biologically inspired learning mechanism.},
  author       = {Braun, Lukas and Vogels, Tim P},
  booktitle    = {35th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems},
  isbn         = {9781713845393},
  issn         = {1049-5258},
  location     = {Virtual, Online},
  pages        = {16437--16450},
  publisher    = {Neural Information Processing Systems Foundation},
  title        = {{Online learning of neural computations from sparse temporal feedback}},
  volume       = {20},
  year         = {2021},
}

@inproceedings{11452,
  abstract     = {We study efficient distributed algorithms for the fundamental problem of principal component analysis and leading eigenvector computation on the sphere, when the data are randomly distributed among a set of computational nodes. We propose a new quantized variant of Riemannian gradient descent to solve this problem, and prove that the algorithm converges with high probability under a set of necessary spherical-convexity properties. We give bounds on the number of bits transmitted by the algorithm under common initialization schemes, and investigate the dependency on the problem dimension in each case.},
  author       = {Alimisis, Foivos and Davies, Peter and Vandereycken, Bart and Alistarh, Dan-Adrian},
  booktitle    = {35th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems},
  isbn         = {9781713845393},
  issn         = {1049-5258},
  location     = {Virtual, Online},
  pages        = {2823--2834},
  publisher    = {Neural Information Processing Systems Foundation},
  title        = {{Distributed principal component analysis with limited communication}},
  volume       = {4},
  year         = {2021},
}

@article{22156,
  abstract     = {Extending a recent breakthrough of Shitov, we prove that the chromatic number of the tensor product of two graphs can be a constant factor smaller than the minimum chromatic number of the two graphs. More precisely, we prove that there exists an absolute constant δ>0 such that for all c sufficiently large, there exist graphs G and H with chromatic number at least (1+δ)c for which χ(G×H)≤c.},
  author       = {He, Xiaoyu and Wigderson, Yuval},
  issn         = {0095-8956},
  journal      = {Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series B},
  keywords     = {Graph coloring, Hedetniemi's conjecture},
  pages        = {485--494},
  publisher    = {Elsevier},
  title        = {{Hedetniemi's conjecture is asymptotically false}},
  doi          = {10.1016/j.jctb.2020.03.003},
  volume       = {146},
  year         = {2021},
}

@article{9331,
  abstract     = {Quantum entanglement has been generated and verified in cold-atom experiments and used to make atom-interferometric measurements below the shot-noise limit. However, current state-of-the-art cold-atom devices exploit separable (i.e., unentangled) atomic states. This perspective piece asks the question: can entanglement usefully improve cold-atom sensors, in the sense that it gives new sensing capabilities unachievable with current state-of-the-art devices? We briefly review the state-of-the-art in precision cold-atom sensing, focusing on clocks and inertial sensors, identifying the potential benefits entanglement could bring to these devices, and the challenges that need to be overcome to realize these benefits. We survey demonstrated methods of generating metrologically useful entanglement in cold-atom systems, note their relative strengths and weaknesses, and assess their prospects for near-to-medium term quantum-enhanced cold-atom sensing.},
  author       = {Szigeti, Stuart S. and Hosten, Onur and Haine, Simon A.},
  issn         = {0003-6951},
  journal      = {Applied Physics Letters},
  number       = {14},
  publisher    = {AIP Publishing},
  title        = {{Improving cold-atom sensors with quantum entanglement: Prospects and challenges}},
  doi          = {10.1063/5.0050235},
  volume       = {118},
  year         = {2021},
}

@article{22161,
  abstract     = {Recently, Souza introduced blowup Ramsey numbers as a gener-
alization of bipartite Ramsey numbers. For graphs G and H, say
G r
−→ H if every r-edge-coloring of G contains a monochromatic
copy of H. Let H[t] denote the t-blowup of H. Then the blowup
Ramsey number of G, H, r, and t is defined as the minimum n
such that G[n] r
−→ H[t]. Souza proved upper and lower bounds on
n that are exponential in t, and conjectured that the exponential
constant does not depend on G. We prove that the dependence on
G in the exponential constant is indeed unnecessary, but conjecture
that some dependence on G is unavoidable.
An important step in both Souza’s proof and ours is a theorem of
Nikiforov, which says that if a graph contains a constant fraction
of the possible copies of H, then it contains a blowup of H of
logarithmic size. We also provide a new proof of this theorem with
a better quantitative dependence.},
  author       = {Fox, Jacob and Luo, Sammy and Wigderson, Yuval},
  issn         = {2150-959X},
  journal      = {Journal of Combinatorics},
  number       = {1},
  pages        = {1--15},
  publisher    = {International Press of Boston},
  title        = {{Extremal and Ramsey results on graph blowups}},
  doi          = {10.4310/joc.2021.v12.n1.a1},
  volume       = {12},
  year         = {2021},
}

@article{17132,
  abstract     = {<jats:p>Extracellular recording is an accessible technique used in animals and humans to study the brain physiology and pathology. As the number of recording channels and their density grows it is natural to ask how much improvement the additional channels bring in and how we can optimally use the new capabilities for monitoring the brain. Here we show that for any given distribution of electrodes we can establish exactly what information about current sources in the brain can be recovered and what information is strictly unobservable. We demonstrate this in the general setting of previously proposed kernel Current Source Density method and illustrate it with simplified examples as well as using evoked potentials from the barrel cortex obtained with a Neuropixels probe and with compatible model data. We show that with conceptual separation of the estimation space from experimental setup one can recover sources not accessible to standard methods.</jats:p>},
  author       = {Chintaluri, Chaitanya and Bejtka, Marta and Średniawa, Władysław and Czerwiński, Michał and Dzik, Jakub M. and Jędrzejewska-Szmek, Joanna and Kondrakiewicz, Kacper and Kublik, Ewa and Wójcik, Daniel K.},
  issn         = {1553-7358},
  journal      = {PLOS Computational Biology},
  number       = {5},
  publisher    = {Public Library of Science},
  title        = {{What we can and what we cannot see with extracellular multielectrodes}},
  doi          = {10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008615},
  volume       = {17},
  year         = {2021},
}

@article{22169,
  abstract     = {A recent breakthrough of Conlon and Ferber yielded an exponential improvement on the lower bounds for multicolor diagonal Ramsey numbers. In this note, we modify their construction and obtain improved bounds for more than three colors.},
  author       = {Wigderson, Yuval},
  issn         = {1088-6826},
  journal      = {Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society},
  number       = {6},
  pages        = {2371--2374},
  publisher    = {American Mathematical Society},
  title        = {{An improved lower bound on multicolor Ramsey numbers}},
  doi          = {10.1090/proc/15447},
  volume       = {149},
  year         = {2021},
}

@article{22175,
  abstract     = {We show how a number of well-known uncertainty principles for the Fourier transform, such as the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, the Donoho–Stark uncertainty principle, and Meshulam’s nonabelian uncertainty principle, have little to do with the structure of the Fourier transform itself. Rather, all of these results follow from very weak properties of the Fourier transform (shared by numerous linear operators), namely that it is bounded as an operator  L1 → L∞, and that it is unitary. Using a single, simple proof template, and only these (or weaker) properties, we obtain some new proofs and many generalizations of these basic uncertainty principles, to new operators and to new settings, in a completely unified way. Together with our general overview, this paper can also serve as a survey of the many facets of the phenomena known as uncertainty principles.},
  author       = {Wigderson, Avi and Wigderson, Yuval},
  issn         = {1088-9485},
  journal      = {Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society},
  number       = {2},
  pages        = {225--261},
  publisher    = {American Mathematical Society},
  title        = {{The uncertainty principle: Variations on a theme}},
  doi          = {10.1090/bull/1715},
  volume       = {58},
  year         = {2021},
}

@article{22207,
  abstract     = {Phase separation is a ubiquitous process and finds applications in a variety of biological, organic, and inorganic systems. Nature has evolved the ability to control phase separation to both regulate cellular processes and make composite materials with outstanding mechanical and optical properties. Striking examples of the latter are the vibrant blue and green feathers of many bird species, which are thought to result from an exquisite control of the size and spatial correlations of their phase-separated microstructures. By contrast, it is much harder for material scientists to arrest and control phase separation in synthetic materials with such a high level of precision at these length scales. In this Perspective, we briefly review some established methods to control liquid–liquid phase separation processes and then highlight the emergence of a promising arrest method based on phase separation in an elastic polymer network. Finally, we discuss upcoming challenges and opportunities for fabricating microstructured materials via mechanically controlled phase separation.},
  author       = {Fernández-Rico, Carla and Sai, Tianqi and Sicher, Alba and Style, Robert W. and Dufresne, Eric R.},
  issn         = {2691-3704},
  journal      = {JACS Au},
  keywords     = {phase separation, arrest, bird feathers, elasticity, polymer networks, microstructured materials},
  number       = {1},
  pages        = {66--73},
  publisher    = {American Chemical Society},
  title        = {{Putting the squeeze on phase separation}},
  doi          = {10.1021/jacsau.1c00443},
  volume       = {2},
  year         = {2021},
}

@article{22211,
  abstract     = {Hierarchically self-assembled materials—structures with order at multiple length scales—can be found everywhere. Examples range from collagen structures in human bones to engineered photonic materials. These structures usually assemble from monodisperse microscopic building blocks that interact via complex directional interactions. In this work, we show that hierarchical materials can, in fact, also be assembled from polydisperse building blocks and by entropic interactions alone. Our simple yet powerful assembly mechanism opens up avenues toward rationally exploiting the often undesired polydispersity of colloidal building blocks for programming entropy-driven self-assembly of hierarchical materials.},
  author       = {Fernández-Rico, Carla and Dullens, Roel P. A.},
  issn         = {1091-6490},
  journal      = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences},
  number       = {33},
  publisher    = {National Academy of Sciences},
  title        = {{Hierarchical self-assembly of polydisperse colloidal bananas into a two-dimensional vortex phase}},
  doi          = {10.1073/pnas.2107241118},
  volume       = {118},
  year         = {2021},
}

@article{22217,
  abstract     = {Surface roughness plays an important role in determining the mechanical properties, wettability, and self-assembly in colloidal systems. In this work, we develop a simple and fast method to produce rough colloidal SU-8 rods, bananas, and spheres, via the nanoprecipitation of SU-8 in water. During this process, SU-8 nanospheres are absorbed onto the surface of the colloidal SU-8 particles and then cross-linked using UV-light. The size of the spherical asperities and the asperity density are controlled by the concentration of SU-8 used during the nanoprecipitation reaction. Fluorescent labeling of the rough SU-8 colloidal particles allows for their confocal imaging, which demonstrates their stability at high packing fractions. With these newly developed rough particles, we provide a colloidal model system that allows for studies addressing the impact of surface roughness on materials composed of anisotropic particles.},
  author       = {Fernández-Rico, Carla and Urbach, Jeffrey S. and Dullens, Roel P. A.},
  issn         = {1520-5827},
  journal      = {Langmuir},
  number       = {9},
  pages        = {2900--2906},
  publisher    = {American Chemical Society},
  title        = {{Synthesis of rough colloidal SU-8 rods and bananas via nanoprecipitation}},
  doi          = {10.1021/acs.langmuir.0c03361},
  volume       = {37},
  year         = {2021},
}

