Soft Janus particles: ideal building blocks for template-free fabrication of two-dimensional exotic nanostructures

The design and fabrication of two-dimensional (2D) well-ordered nanostructures by a facile and effective strategy remain a major scientific and technological challenge, hitherto achieved mainly through the aid of interfaces or substrates with an ordered arrangement. Here we introduce a new concept in achieving template-free fabrication of diverse 2D ordered nanostructures by utilizing anisotropic characteristics of soft triblock Janus particles. Our numerical investigation demonstrates how particle softness and controllable directional attraction interplay to generate a number of fascinating non-close-packed 2D nanostructures and even three-dimensional (3D) vesicles. These non-close-packed nanostructures are of great interest for scientific reasons and lead to promising applications in soft nanotechnology and biotechnology.