Magnetic assembly of colloidal superstructures with multipole symmetry

Randall M. Erb, Hui S. Son, Bappaditya Samanta, Vincent M. Rotello and Benjamin B. Yellen ()
Additional contact information
Randall M. Erb: Duke University, Center for Biologically Inspired Materials and Material Systems, Box 90300, Hudson Hall, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA
Hui S. Son: Duke University, Center for Biologically Inspired Materials and Material Systems, Box 90300, Hudson Hall, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA
Bappaditya Samanta: University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, USA
Vincent M. Rotello: University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, USA
Benjamin B. Yellen: Duke University, Center for Biologically Inspired Materials and Material Systems, Box 90300, Hudson Hall, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA

Nature, 2009, vol. 457, issue 7232, 999-1002

Abstract: A flowering of colloids The controlled assembly of complex structures from simple colloidal building blocks can produce materials with properties useful in photonics, as biological sensors and elsewhere. A new method of assembling complex colloidal structures in bulk fluid by applying a magnetic field to a mixture of colloidal particles of different size, magnetization and composition is now reported. The shapes that can be obtained when these particles are suspended in a ferromagnetic fluid resemble electric charge distributions such as quadrupoles and octupoles, generating a variety of complex structures including ring- and flower-shaped assemblies. The repulsion that exists between two assembled particles also prevents the formation of clusters.

Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature07766 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:nature:v:457:y:2009:i:7232:d:10.1038_nature07766

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

DOI: 10.1038/nature07766

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

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