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

非技术摘要：一些纯材料是高度均匀的，从很小到很大的长度尺度上具有基本相同的结构和性质。然而，其他材料，包括生物组织，在从微观到宏观的不同长度尺度上具有不同的结构和性质;这些是“多尺度”材料。物理科学当前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。该项目的重点是创建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。光学光刻技术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由移动的瓦片状颗粒组成的人类设计的、预先配置的、多尺度的材料，这些颗粒在二维空间中具有不同长度尺度的有趣形状和排列。除了揭示控制移动的成分的动力学和结构的物理规则以及使用光学显微镜在这种多尺度材料中不同长度尺度之间的耦合之外，该项目还使K-12学生受益，包括代表性不足的少数民族学生，在洛杉矶地区，通过与教育者一起部署的适龄教育模块，向他们介绍光刻的基本概念，技术摘要：最近出现的光刻预组装单层的移动的形状设计的胶体瓷砖，使用光学步进光刻，提供了一个新的和强大的实验路线，使二维动态系统具有可控的多尺度的复杂性。该项目利用光刻预组装单层来探索平衡和非平衡多尺度材料，包括准晶体和分级晶体的晶体，这些材料具有跨越广泛长度尺度的受控对称性和拓扑结构。这些系统的延时光学视频显微镜实验产生的时空动力学和动态下降到瓷砖规模，从而产生的形状设计的单层系统的波动和演变的测量结果作为熵布朗激发的结果，也作为主动驾驶的结果。通过对这些视频的粒子跟踪分析，定量地了解了拥挤形状的多尺度复杂系统，这是理解更复杂形式的活性物质和生物物质的起点。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.