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Colloidal assembly directed by virtual magnetic moulds

Nature volume 503, pages 99–103 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

Interest in assemblies of colloidal particles1,2,3,4 has long been motivated by their applications in photonics5,6, electronics7,8, sensors8 and microlenses9. Existing assembly schemes10,11,12,13,14,15 can position colloids of one type relatively flexibly into a range of desired structures, but it remains challenging to produce multicomponent lattices, clusters with precisely controlled symmetries and three-dimensional assemblies16. A few schemes can efficiently produce complex colloidal structures2,17,18, but they require system-specific procedures. Here we show that magnetic field microgradients established in a paramagnetic fluid19,20 can serve as ‘virtual moulds’ to act as templates for the assembly of large numbers (∼108) of both non-magnetic and magnetic colloidal particles with micrometre precision and typical yields of 80 to 90 per cent. We illustrate the versatility of this approach by producing single-component and multicomponent colloidal arrays, complex three-dimensional structures and a variety of colloidal molecules from polymeric particles, silica particles and live bacteria and by showing that all of these structures can be made permanent. In addition, although our magnetic moulds currently resemble optical traps in that they are limited to the manipulation of micrometre-sized objects, they are massively parallel and can manipulate non-magnetic and magnetic objects simultaneously in two and three dimensions.

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Figure 1: Micropatterned magnetophoretic forces direct the assembly of single-component and multicomponent colloidal arrays.
Figure 2: Planar colloidal molecules.
Figure 3: Magnetic moulds directing the assembly of single-component and multicomponent three-dimensional colloidal structures.
Figure 4: Assembly of three-dimensional colloidal molecules.
Figure 5: Magnetic positioning of live bacteria, nanoparticles and ions.

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Acknowledgements

We thank P. E. Fuller for his Matlab scripts. This work was supported by the Non-equilibrium Energy Research Center, which is an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences under award number DE-SC0000989.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry and Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, 60208, Illinois, USA

    Ahmet F. Demirörs, Pramod P. Pillai, Bartlomiej Kowalczyk & Bartosz A. Grzybowski

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  1. Ahmet F. Demirörs
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  2. Pramod P. Pillai
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  3. Bartlomiej Kowalczyk
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  4. Bartosz A. Grzybowski
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Contributions

A.F.D. conducted colloid experiments and calculations. P.P.P. and B.K. performed experiments on the bacteria and nanoparticle assemblies. A.F.D., P.P.P. and B.K. prepared the figures. B.A.G. conceived the project, supervised the research, and wrote the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Bartosz A. Grzybowski.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Methods, Supplementary Figures 1-16 and additional references. The Supplementary Methods and Figures provide details on the fabrication and characterization of the magnetic traps as well as the colloidal assemblies formed using the traps. (PDF 2374 kb)

A4 colloids

This video shows clusters of particles after they have been liberated from the template into a solvent (water). In this particular case the clusters shown are tetramers of particles. (MP4 384 kb)

A6 colloids

This video shows template-liberated triangular hexamers of particles after their release into water. (MP4 451 kb)

AB colloids

In this video, the liberated clusters released into water are heterodimers, AB, made from two different types of particles with different size and label. (MP4 931 kb)

AB2 colloids

The particular clusters of particles seen in this video, after liberation from their template and release into water, are made from two different types of particles to give AB2 structures (with A larger in size than the B-type particles). (MP4 414 kb)

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Demirörs, A., Pillai, P., Kowalczyk, B. et al. Colloidal assembly directed by virtual magnetic moulds. Nature 503, 99–103 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12591

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