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Updated: Feb 26, 2026

Origami Inspired Self-assembly of Patterned and Reconfigurable Particles
Published on: February 4, 2013
Janus particles self-assembled from a small organic atypical asymmetric gemini surfactant
Lei Tang1, Jun Yang, Qinqin Yin
1Laboratory of Anaestheisa & Critical Care Medicine, Translational Neuroscience Center, and Department of Anaesthesiology, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, P. R. China. manstein_1984@sina.com zhang_ws@scu.edu.cn scujinliu@gmail.com.
Abstract:
A series of atypical asymmetric gemini surfactants with an amphiphilic carbonate group (-O-CO-O-) have been prepared. Some of these compounds could self-assemble in water into gourd-shaped Janus particles (JPs). Initial results suggested that the formation of JPs was highly likely to be related to their atypical gemini surfactant structure. To our knowledge, this is the first report on JPs that are self-assembled from a single kind of small organic molecule. We believe that our results will be utilized in many fields.
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