Surface Tension-Driven Self-Assembly

Three-dimensional polymeric microtiles for optically-tracked fluidic self-assembly

“…Three-and two-dimensional components are normally designed with polyhedral [18] and polygonal [13] symmetrical shapes, respectively. This makes the topology of the stochastically assembled structures more predictable and easier to control-particularly for populations with components of a unique type.…”

“…In this scale range, surface forces dominate, and a broad variety of innovative functional systems has been assembled by a combination of fluidic drag and surface tension forces, i.e. by fluidic SA [12,13]. Analytic studies on the dynamics and control of SA at this scale are therefore pivotal for further technological advances.…”

Autonomous Supramolecular Interface Self‐Healing Monitored by Restoration of UV/Vis Absorption Spectra of Self‐Assembled Thiazole Layers

“…However, even the simpler process of self‐assembly rather than self‐healing is already considerably complex and depends on a large variety of parameters, involving properties of the amphiphile (surface activity, hydrophilic to lipophilic balance, amphiphilicity, solubility, shape and many more, see for example, the review by Tschierske and Ungar et al but even the shape of similarly polar solvents), and physical parameters (essentially temperature).…”

“…However,e ven the simplerp rocess of self-assembly rather than self-healing is already considerably complex [11] andd ependso nalarge variety of parameters, involving properties of the amphiphile (surface activity, [12] hydrophilic to lipophilic bal-ance, [13] amphiphilicity, [14] solubility,s hape [15] and many more, see for example, the review by Tschierske and Ungar et al [16] ), the substrate surface, the solvent( polarity, [17] but even the shape of similarly polar solvents [18] ), and physical parameters (essentially temperature [11,19] ). Therefore, detailed studies on self-assembly rely on surface-sensitivei ns itu techniques, such as elaborate atomic force [20] or scanning tunneling microscopy.…”

Shift Dynamics of Capillary Self-Alignment

“…It indeed combines the manipulative dexterity of robotic handling for fast and rough component pre-alignment with the highly-accurate and passive final alignment yielded by the relaxation of a liquid droplet over a shape-matching patterned confinement site [4]. Die fetching and registration can thus be partly parallelized, leading to increased efficiency in the integration of innovative microsystems [5]. A more comprehensive knowledge of capillary SA needs further modeling and experimental testing.…”