Two-Dimensional Pre-Assembled Multi-Scale Brownian Soft Matter

非技术摘要：一些纯材料高度均匀，从很小的尺度到很大的尺度都具有基本相同的结构和性质。然而，包括生物组织在内的其他材料，从微观到宏观，在不同的长度尺度上具有不同的结构和性质；这些都是“多尺度”材料。目前物理科学中最重要的挑战之一是制定描述日益复杂的多尺度材料的规则，这些材料开始接近生物学中发现的极高水平的复杂性。该项目专注于创造和研究高度可控的合成多尺度材料的行为，这些材料包含分散在液体中的移动形状设计的颗粒成分。光学光刻是大规模生产计算机芯片的关键技术，它能够自上而下地生产人类设计的、预先配置的、由可移动的瓷砖状颗粒组成的多尺度材料，这些颗粒在两个维度上具有不同长度尺度的有趣形状和排列。除了利用光学显微镜揭示控制这种多尺度材料中可移动成分的动力学和结构以及不同长度尺度之间的耦合的物理规则之外，该项目还通过与加州大学洛杉矶分校X中心的在职教育人员一起部署的适合年龄的教育模块向洛杉矶地区的K-12学生(包括未被充分代表的少数族裔学生)介绍光刻的基本概念。技术摘要：最近出现的利用光学阶梯光刻制作的移动形状设计的胶体瓷砖的光刻预组装单层的出现，为制造具有可控的多尺度复杂性的二维动态系统提供了一条新的且强大的实验路线。该项目利用光刻预组装的单分子膜来探索平衡和非平衡多尺度材料，包括准晶体和晶体的分级晶体，这些材料具有跨越广泛长度尺度的对称性和拓扑结构。这些体系的延时光学视频显微镜实验产生了时空动力学和动力学，细至瓦片尺度，从而测量了形状设计的单层系统的涨落和演化，这既是熵布朗激发的结果，也是主动驱动的结果。通过对这些视频的粒子跟踪分析，对拥挤形状的多尺度复杂系统的定量洞察是理解更复杂形式的活动和生物物质的起点。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Nontechnical Abstract:Some pure materials are highly uniform and have essentially the same structure and properties from very small to very large length scales. However, other materials, including biological tissues, have different structures and properties at different length scales from microscopic to macroscopic; these are 'multi-scale' materials. One of the most important current challenges in physical science involves developing rules that describe increasingly complex multi-scale materials which begin to approach the extremely high level of complexity found in biology. This project focuses on creating and studying the behavior of highly contollable synthetic multi-scale materials that contain moving shape-designed particulate components dispersed in a liquid. Optical lithography, which is the key technology for mass-producing computer chips, enables the top-down production of human-designed, pre-configured, multi-scale materials composed of mobile tile-like particles that have interesting shapes and arrangements at different length scales in two dimensions. Beyond revealing physical rules that govern the dynamics and structures of mobile constituents and coupling between different length scales in such multi-scale materials using optical microscopy, this project benefits K-12 students, including underrepresented minority students, in the Los Angeles area by introducing them to the basic concepts of lithography through age-appropriate educational modules that are deployed in conjunction with educators-in-training at UCLA's Center X.Technical Abstract:The recent advent of lithographically pre-assembled monolayers of mobile shape-designed colloidal tiles, made using optical stepper lithography, provides a new and powerful experimental route for making two-dimensional dynamic systems having controllable multi-scale complexity. This project takes advantage of lithographically pre-assembled monolayers to explore both equilibrium and non-equilibrium multi-scale materials, including quasi-crystals and hierarchical crystals-of-crystals, that have controlled symmetries and topologies spanning a wide range of length scales. Time-lapse optical video microscopy experiments of these systems yield spatio-temporal kinetics and dynamics down to the tile scale, thereby yielding measurements of the fluctuations and evolution of shape-designed monolayer systems both as a consequence of entropic Brownian excitations and also as a consequence of active driving. From particle tracking analysis of these videos, quantitative insight into multi-scale complex systems of crowded shapes serves as a starting point for understanding more complex forms of active and biological matter.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.