Original title: Designing corrugated surfaces to guide colloidal self-assembly
Dinesh Kumar Sahu, Jude Ann Vishnu, Lisa Shafroth, Martin Lenz +2 · September 2026
Scientists want microscopic particles to assemble themselves into useful materials, but getting them to link up into specific shapes reversibly and at scale is difficult. To solve this, researchers used precise 3D printing to make flat, polygon-shaped colloidsTiny particles dispersed in a liquid, like ink in water.—tiny suspended particles—with engineered microscopic surface textures on their sides. Surrounding molecules create an attractive force that pushes matching textured edges together. Because of these distinct textured sides, the particles self-assemble into predictable patterns, including pairs, chains, zigzags, and honeycomb networks. Changing the texture size, particle solution saltiness, or the concentration of surrounding pusher molecules switches the system between selective and non-selective binding. Positioning the textures and adjusting the attraction strength lets researchers control final aggregate sizes and shapes. This design strategy guides soft materials to assemble into planned architectures.
Imagine you are connecting toy blocks, but they have notches that only fit together if aligned perfectly. If the notches are mismatched, the blocks won't connect. Here, the colloids have nanoscale notches that determine how they assemble, and by changing these notches or the solution, researchers control which structures form.
This could help materials scientists design soft materials that change shape or function for applications like sensors or drug delivery. By controlling how tiny particles assemble, we can create materials with tailored properties without complex manufacturing.
The work focuses on hexagonal shaped colloids and may not apply to other shapes. It relies on depletion-induced assembly and precise 3D printing, which might not scale easily. The study demonstrates control in specific conditions but doesn't address all possible interaction types.
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Designing corrugated surfaces to guide colloidal self-assembly — Dinesh Kumar Sahu, Jude Ann Vishnu, Lisa Shafroth et al.
Abstract licence: CC0
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper. This is a preprint, so it hasn't necessarily been peer reviewed.