CAREER: Colloids with programmable surfaces: A polymer approach to self-assembly

有一种奇妙的方法可以赋予一种材料新的特性，这种方法不需要改变它的化学成分，而只需改变材料内部物质的结构排列。创建底层微观结构可以使块状材料以独特和非常规的方式与能量相互作用。其结果是出现了自然界中通常不存在的新特性。然而，这种材料的实际实现并不简单，因为它需要在三维物体中创建有规则间隔的微观特征。虽然这不能通过经典的自上而下的方法实现，但胶体自组装提供了一种概念上简单的途径，以自下而上的方式赋予这种微观秩序。首席研究员寻求发现新的方法来操纵和合理地将微观构建块组装成复杂的微结构，并最终成为功能性新材料。廉价的聚合物和简单的静电荷被用来介导构建块之间的结合相互作用，从而有效地传递组装信息。其结果是复杂的“汤”胶体构建块，新材料有望自组装和出现。该项目固有的跨学科特性，自然地将化学、物理和材料科学联系起来，为从高中到研究生的学生提供了广泛的教学机会。教育和更广泛的推广目标包括开发一个公开的“胶体图书馆”——一个将学生与来自不同科学和工业领域的研究专家联系起来的门户网站。技术描述当胶体自组装的整个领域正迅速向使用DNA来介导粒子相互作用和传递精确的组装指令的方向发展时，本研究提出了一种新的和有趣的无DNA的可编程自组装方法。研究小组调查了聚合物介导的胶体相互作用，并提出了它们作为操纵和组装胶体物质的新通用工具。该项目以首席研究员在合成胶体化学和软物质物理方面的专业知识为基础，旨在：(i)开发一个模块化的合成平台，用于聚合物涂层胶体的快速原型设计；（ii）使用由此产生的胶体模型系统来研究广泛的聚合物介导的胶体相互作用（包括焓和熵驱动）；（iii）利用这些知识开发廉价且可扩展的方法来编程复杂胶体流体的自组装行为。该项目为下一代可编程自组装胶体材料奠定了基础。

Non-Technical DescriptionThere is a fascinating way of imparting new properties to a material that does not require altering its chemical composition, but rather changing the structural arrangement of matter within the material itself. Creating an underlying microstructure can enable bulk materials to interact with energy in unique and unconventional ways. The result are emerging new properties that do not normally exist in nature. The practical realization of such materials, however, is not straightforward, as it requires creating microscopic features that are regularly spaced throughout a three-dimensional object. While this is not achievable via a classic top-down approach, colloidal self-assembly offers a conceptually simple route to impart such microscopic order in a bottom-up fashion.The principal investigator seeks to discover novel methodologies to manipulate and rationally assemble microscopic building blocks into complex micro-architectures and ultimately into functional new materials. Inexpensive polymers and simple electrostatic charges are used to mediate the binding interactions between the building blocks, thus effectively imparting assembly information. The results are complex "soups" of colloidal building blocks from which new materials are expected to self-assemble and emerge.The inherent interdisciplinary character of the project, which naturally bridges between chemistry, physics, and material science, offers a broad range of teaching opportunities from high school to graduate students. Educational and broader outreach goals include the development of a publicly available "colloidal library" - a Web Portal that connects students with research experts from various fields of science and industry.Technical DescriptionWhile the whole field of colloidal self-assembly is rapidly converging towards the use of DNA to mediate particle interactions and impart precise assembly instructions, this research addresses a new and intriguing DNA-free approach to programmable self-assembly. The research team investigates polymer-mediated colloidal interactions and proposes them as new general tools for manipulating and assembling colloidal matter. Building on the principal investigator's expertise in synthetic colloidal chemistry and soft-matter physics, the project aims to: (i) develop a modular synthetic platform for the rapid prototyping of polymer-coated colloids, (ii) use the resulting colloidal model systems to study a broad range of polymer-mediated colloidal interactions (both enthalpy and entropy driven), and (iii) use this knowledge to develop inexpensive and scalable methodologies to program the self-assembly behavior of complex colloidal fluids.This project lays the foundation for the next generation of programmable self-assembling colloidal materials.