Multistep self-assembly opens door to new reconfigurable materials

image: Materials science and engineering professor Qian Chen, center, and graduate students Binbin Luo, left, and Ahyoung Kim find inspiration in biology to help investigate how order emerges from self-assembling building blocks of varying size and shape. view more 

Credit: Photo by L. Brian Stauffer

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Self-assembling synthetic materials come together when tiny, uniform building blocks interact and form a structure. However, nature lets materials like proteins of varying size and shape assemble, allowing for complex architectures that can handle multiple tasks.

University of Illinois engineers took a closer look at how nonuniform synthetic particles assemble and were surprised to find that it happens in multiples phases, opening the door for new reconfigurable materials for use in technologies such as solar cells and catalysis.

The findings are reported in the journal Nature Communications.

"Traditional self-assembly can be thought of like a grocery store stacking apples for a display in the produce section," said