Self assembly of magnetic nanorings using a viral template

尽管在过去的十年里，在合成纳米元件方面取得了许多进展，但将这些元件组装成确定和可控的图案仍然是该领域的主要挑战。这种控制是生产分子级电子、光子和磁性器件所必需的，这些器件具有明确的和可重现的特性。由于在这种长度尺度上“自上而下”地操纵材料是有问题的，或者是不可能的，研究人员已经着手开发方法，通过这种方法，溶液中的不同成分可以有序地聚集在一起。这个被称为自组装的过程是非常有效的，只要组件被适当地编码来这样做。

Although there have been many advances in the last decade in synthesizing nanosized components, the assembly of these components into deterministic and controllable patterns remains a major challenge in the field. Such control is required to produce molecular scale electronic, photonic, and magnetic devices that have well-defined and reproducible properties. Because "top-down" manipulation of materials on this length scale is either problematic or impossible, researchers have set out to develop methods by which different components in solution can come together in an ordered fashion. This process, termed self assembly, is very efficient provided the components are properly encoded to do so.