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Origami Inspired Self-assembly of Patterned and Reconfigurable Particles
Published on: February 4, 2013
Blossoming of nanosheet structures via a disturbed self-assembly
Yu Wang1, Wei-Hong Katie Zhong, Jianying Ji
1School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Washington State University , Pullman, Washington 99163, United States.
Abstract:
Nanofabrication has been critical in all kinds of nanotechnology, not only for achieving various nanostructures or nanosystems but also for the application of the nanotechnology. To achieve controllable but simple nanofabrication is one of the central aspirations for many research communities; here, for the first time, we report the growth of nanosheet structures simply by introducing internal disturbances (adding nanoparticles and surface tension) or external disturbances (deformations) to the self-assembly of copolymers induced by evaporation. Nanoparticles, curved surface, and deformations by such as writing or extension have been employed to demonstrate the sensitivity of the nanosheet structures to various disturbances. Finally, a physical model has been proposed to explain how the disturbances contribute to the formation of the nanosheet structures. These significant results indicate a scalable, writable, cost-effective and environmentally friendly nanotechnology that will stimulate new nanofabrication research.

