Patchy colloids with highly directional interactions are ideal building blocks to control the local arrangements resulting from their spontaneous self-organization. Here we propose their use, combined with substrates and nonequilibrium conditions, to obtain novel structures, different from those of equilibrium thermodynamic phases. Specifically, we investigate numerically the irreversible adhesion of three-patch colloids near attractive substrates, and analyze the fractal network of connected particles that is formed. The network density profile exhibits three distinct regimes, with different structural and scaling properties, which we characterize in detail. The adsorption of a mixture of three-and two-patch colloids is also considered. An optimal fraction of two-patch colloids is found where the total density of the film is maximized, in contrast to the equilibrium gel structures where a monotonic decrease of the density has been reported.

Particle-based simulations are performed to study the post-relaxation dynamics of functionalized (patchy) colloids adsorbed on an attractive substrate. Kinetically arrested structures that depend on the number of adsorbed particles and the strength of the particle-particle and particle-substrate interactions are identified. The radial distribution function is characterized by a sequence of peaks, with relative intensities that depend on the number of adsorbed particles. The first-layer coverage is a non-monotonic function of the number of particles, with an optimal value around one layer of adsorbed particles. The initial relaxation towards these structures is characterized by a fast (exponential) and a slow (power-law) dynamics. The fast relaxation timescale is a linearly increasing function of the number of adsorbed particles in the submonolayer regime, but it saturates for more than one adsorbed layer. The slow dynamics exhibits two characteristic exponents, depending on the surface coverage.

We study the irreversible adsorption of spherical 2AnB patchy colloids (with two A-patches on the poles and n B-patches along the equator) on a substrate. In particular, we consider dissimilar AA, AB, and BB binding probabilities. We characterize the patch-colloid network and its dependence on n and on the binding probabilities. Two growth regimes are identified with different density profiles and we calculate a growth mode diagram as a function of the colloid parameters. We also find that, close to the substrate, the density of the network, which depends on the colloid parameters, is characterized by a depletion zone.