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Formation of Biomembrane Microarrays with a Squeegee-based Assembly Method
Published on: May 8, 2014
Field-induced self-assembly of suspended colloidal membranes
N Osterman1, I Poberaj, J Dobnikar
1Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana, Jadranska 19, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Abstract:
We report experiments that probe the self-assembly of micrometer-size colloids into one-particle-thick, robust, and self-healing membranes. In a magic-angle precessing magnetic field, superparamagnetic spheres experience isotropic pair attraction similar to the van der Waals force between atoms. But the many-body polarization interactions among them steer an ordered aggregation pathway consisting of growth of short chains, cross-linking and network formation, network coarsening, and consolidation of membrane patches. This generic aggregation scenario can be induced in any particles of large enough susceptibility.
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