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Abstract

Self-assembly can easily produce intricate structures that would be difficult to make by conventional fabrication means. Here, self-assembly is used to prepare multicomponent polymeric microspheres of arbitrary internal symmetries. Droplets of liquid prepolymers are printed onto a water-soluble hydrogel, and are allowed to spread and coalesce into composite patches. These patches are then immersed in an isodense liquid, which both compensates the force of gravity and dissolves the gel beneath the polymers. Subsequently, the patches fold into spheres whose internal structures are dictated by the arrangement of the droplets printed onto the surface. The spheres can be solidified either thermally or by ultraviolet radiation. We present a theoretical analysis of droplet spreading, coalescence and folding. Conditions for the stability of the folded microspheres are derived from linear stability analysis. The composite microbeads that we describe are likely to find uses in optics, colloidal self-assembly and controlled-delivery applications.

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Acknowledgements

B.G. gratefully acknowledges financial support from Northwestern University start-up funds and from the Camille and Henry Dreyfus New Faculty Awards Program. M.F. was supported by the NATO Scientific Fellowship. A.B. acknowledges financial assistance from the ProChimia Poland Research Fund.

Author informationAffiliationsDepartment of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Northwestern University, 2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston, 60208, Illinois, USAMarcin Fialkowski,聽Agnieszka Bitner聽 聽Bartosz A. GrzybowskiAuthorsMarcin FialkowskiView author publicationsYou can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar Agnieszka BitnerView author publicationsYou can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar Bartosz A. GrzybowskiView author publicationsYou can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar Corresponding author

Correspondence to Bartosz A. Grzybowski.

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Fialkowski, M., Bitner, A. Grzybowski, B. Self-assembly of polymeric microspheres of complex internal structures. Nature Mater 4, 93鈥?7 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1267

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Received: 06 August 2004

Accepted: 04 October 2004

Published: 19 December 2004

Issue Date: January 2005

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1267

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