Related papers: Customizing mesoscale self-assembly with 3D printi…
We demonstrate here a method to fabricate CdSe photonic crystal from a very cheap fabrication route of templated self-assembly. The hexagonal close-packed photonic crystals are formed by the electrochemical growth of CdSe through the…
Micron-sized objects confined in thin liquid films interact through forces mediated by the deformed liquid-air interface. This capillary interactions provide a powerful driving mechanism for the self-assembly of ordered structures such as…
Amphiphilic molecules spontaneously form self-assembled structures of various shapes depending on their molecular structures, the temperature, and other physical conditions. The functionalities of these structures are dictated by their…
In micro- and nano-scale systems, particles can be moved by using an external force like gravity or a magnetic field. In the presence of adhesive particles that can attach to each other, the challenge is to decide whether a shape is…
This work introduces a novel technique for fabricating functional robots using 3D printers. Simultaneously depositing photopolymers and a non-curing liquid allows complex, pre-filled fluidic channels to be fabricated. This new printing…
Advances in 3D printing technology now enable the precise positioning of microscopic material voxels to form complex structures. Combined with emerging multi-material capabilities and printable responsive materials, this opens new…
Fabrication of diamond structures by self-assembly is a fundamental challenge in making three-dimensional photonic crystals. We simulate a system of model hard particles with attractive patches and show that they can self-assemble into a…
Colloidal assembly at fluid interfaces has a great potential for the bottom-up fabrication of novel structured materials. However, challenges remain in realizing controllable and tunable assembly of particles into diverse structures.…
Capillary forces guide the motion of biomolecular condensates, water-borne insects, and breakfast cereal. These surface-mediated interactions can be harnessed to build units into materials with exotic properties deriving from mesoscale…
Open source hardware has the potential to revolutionise the way we build scientific instruments; with the advent of readily-available 3D printers, mechanical designs can now be shared, improved and replicated faster and more easily than…
We describe a macroscopic beam splitter for polar neutral molecules. A complex electrode structure is required for the beam splitter which would be very difficult to produce with traditional manufacturing methods. Instead, we make use of a…
Elastic sheets with macroscopic dimensions are easy to deform by bending and stretching. Yet shaping nanometric sheets by mechanical manipulation is hard. Here we show that nanoparticle self-assembly could be used to this end. We…
The self-assembly of hard polyhedral particles confined to a flat interface is studied using Monte Carlo simulations. The particles are pinned to the interface by restricting their movement in the direction perpendicular to it while…
Recent progress in colloidal science has led to elaborate self-assembled structures whose complexity raises hopes for elaborating new materials. However, the throughputs are extremely low and consequently, the chance to produce materials of…
The design space for a self-assembled multicomponent objects ranges from a solution in which every building block is unique to one with the minimum number of distinct building blocks that unambiguously define the target structure. Using a…
Complex colloidal cluster morphologies are desirable for the fabrication of advanced materials, such as photonic crystals and meta-materials, and can be formed through evaporation-driven packing. By coupling lattice Boltzmann and discrete…
The possibility of producing polymer-bonded magnets with the aid of additive processes, such as 3D printing, opens up a multitude of new areas of application. Almost any structures and prototypes can be produced cost-effectively in small…
Colloidal assembly represents a powerful method for the fabrication of functional materials. In this article, we describe how acoustic radiation forces can guide the assembly of colloidal particles into structures that serve as microscopic…
We prove that by successively combining subassemblies, we can achieve sublinear construction times for "staged" assembly of micro-scale objects from a large number of tiny particles, for vast classes of shapes; this is a significant advance…
Ellipsoidal particles confined at liquid interfaces exhibit complex self-assembly behaviour due to quadrupolar capillary interactions induced by meniscus deformation. These interactions cause particles to attract each other in either…