  Multiple dissipative self-assembly protocols designed to create novel
structures or to reduce kinetic traps have recently emerged. Specifically,
temporal oscillations of particle interactions have been shown effective at
both aims, but investigations thus far have focused on systems of simple
colloids or their binary mixtures. In this work, we expand our understanding of
the effect of temporally oscillating interactions to a two-dimensional
coarse-grained viral capsid-like model that undergoes a self-limited assembly.
This model includes multiple intrinsic relaxation times due to the internal
structure of the capsid subunits and, under certain interaction regimes,
proceeds via a two-step nucleation mechanism. We find that oscillations much
faster than the local intrinsic relaxation times can be described via a time
averaged inter-particle potential across a wide range of interaction strengths,
while oscillations much slower than these relaxation times result in structures
that adapt to the attraction strength of the current half-cycle. Interestingly,
oscillation periods similar to these relaxation times shift the interaction
window over which orderly assembly occurs by enabling error correction during
the half-cycles with weaker attractions. Our results provide fundamental
insights to non-equilibrium self-assembly on temporally variant energy
landscapes.
