Colloidal ribbons and rings from Janus magnetic rods

Jing Yan, Kundan Chaudhary, Sung Chul Bae, Jennifer A. Lewis and Steve Granick ()
Additional contact information
Jing Yan: University of Illinois
Kundan Chaudhary: University of Illinois
Sung Chul Bae: University of Illinois
Jennifer A. Lewis: University of Illinois
Steve Granick: University of Illinois

Nature Communications, 2013, vol. 4, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Dipolar particles are fundamental building blocks in nature and technology, yet the effect of particle anisotropy is seldom explored. Here, we fabricate colloidal silica rods coated with a hemicylindrical magnetic layer to satisfy multiple criteria: nearly monodisperse, easily imaged and magnetic interaction that dominates over gravity. We confirm long-predicted features of dipolar assembly and stress the microstructural variety brought about by shape and constituent anisotropy, especially by extrapolating knowledge learned from literal molecules. In this colloidal system, we describe analogies to liquid crystalline deformations with bend, splay and twist; an analogy to cis/trans isomerism in organic molecules, which in our system can be controllably and reversibly switched; and a field-switching methodology to direct single ribbons into not only single but also multiple rings that can subsequently undergo hierarchical self-assembly. We highlight subtle material issues of control and design rules for reconfigurable dipolar materials with building blocks of complex shape.

Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2520 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:4:y:2013:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms2520

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2520

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().