Fabrication, Dynamics and Self-assembly of Anisotropic Colloidal Particles

Download or read book Fabrication, Dynamics and Self-assembly of Anisotropic Colloidal Particles written by Adam J. Deconinck and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The self-assembly of colloidal particles into larger structures is of interest both scientifically and technologically. The range of possible structures that may be formed by isotropically-interacting spherical particles is narrow, encompassing only a few possibilities. To overcome this limitation, one can introduce one or more forms of anisotropy to the particles to guide their self-assembly.In this work, we study the fabrication and behavior of polymeric microparticles that are chemically- and shape-anisotropic. Single-component, rod-shaped particles are fabricated by stop-flow lithography (SFL) using either hydrophobic and hydrophilic materials. SFL is also used to fabricateJanus particles that incorporate both chemistries within a single particle. The dynamical behavior and self-assembly of these rods are investigated using fluorescence and confocal microscopy over a rangeof different aspect ratios and environmental conditions. We also developed image processing algorithms to enable the quantitative analysis of these data, adapting standard particle identification and tracking techniques to the analysis of rod-shaped colloids.Finally, we demonstrated the fabrication of colloidal particles with branched and more complex morphologies, and briefly studied the self-assembly of these "patchy" particles.