Spontaneous propagation of self-assembly in a continuous medium

Abstract

We report a mechanism that self-assembly propagates spontaneously in a continuum medium, enabling the delivery of local order information to distance. In a large stable system a locally self-assembled structure as a precursor destabilizes its surrounding areas through a dipole interaction. The newly formed structures inherit the same order information from the precursor and further activate the self-assembly of their neighbors. This process causes spatial extension of self-assembly and replication of the order, producing extremely long-range ordered superlattice without defects.