1.5 Colloids with Programmable Surfaces: A Polymer Approach to Self-Assembly
(Room 243-245)
09 Apr 18
4:30 PM
-
5:00 PM
Tracks:
Session 1: Powder Coatings, Session 1: Science Today - Coatings Tomorrow
There is a fascinating way of imparting new properties to a material that does not require altering its chemical composition, but rather changing the structural arrangement of matter within the material itself. Creating an underlying microstructure can enable bulk materials to interact with energy in unique and unconventional ways. The result are emerging new properties that do not normally exist in nature. The practical realization of such materials, however, is not straightforward, as it requires creating microscopic features that are regularly spaced throughout a three-dimensional object. While this is not achievable via a classic top-down approach, colloidal self-assembly offers a conceptually simple route to impart such microscopic order in a bottom-up fashion. The research seeks to discover novel methodologies to manipulate and rationally assemble microscopic building blocks into complex micro-architectures and ultimately into functional new materials. Inexpensive polymers and simple electrostatic charges are used to mediate the binding interactions between the building blocks, thus effectively imparting assembly information. The results are complex "soups" of colloidal building blocks from which new materials are expected to self-assemble and emerge.