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Self-Assembly Dynamics of Reconfigurable Colloidal Molecules.

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Chakraborty, Indrani 
Pearce, Daniel JG 
Giomi, Luca 

Abstract

Colloidal molecules are designed to mimic their molecular analogues through their anisotropic shape and interactions. However, current experimental realizations are missing the structural flexibility present in real molecules thereby restricting their use as model systems. We overcome this limitation by assembling reconfigurable colloidal molecules from silica particles functionalized with mobile DNA linkers in high yields. We achieve this by steering the self-assembly pathway toward the formation of finite-sized clusters by employing high number ratios of particles functionalized with complementary DNA strands. The size ratio of the two species of particles provides control over the overall cluster size, i.e., the number of bound particles N, as well as the degree of reconfigurability. The bond flexibility provided by the mobile linkers allows the successful assembly of colloidal clusters with the geometrically expected maximum number of bound particles and shape. We quantitatively examine the self-assembly dynamics of these flexible colloidal molecules by a combination of experiments, agent-based simulations, and an analytical model. Our "flexible colloidal molecules" are exciting building blocks for investigating and exploiting the self-assembly of complex hierarchical structures, photonic crystals, and colloidal metamaterials.

Description

Funder: Dutch Research Council (NWO)

Keywords

colloidal clusters, controlled valence, mobile DNA linkers, self-assembly, structural flexibility, Anisotropy, Colloids, Photons

Journal Title

ACS Nano

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1936-0851
1936-086X

Volume Title

16

Publisher

American Chemical Society (ACS)
Sponsorship
European Research Council (758383)