Our niche … scalable, general

This is an exciting time for those of us who study how to fabricate colloidal assemblies. There are so many outstanding techniques! Janus particles, dielectrophoretic assembly, surface tension assembly.

Our niche is simple. We aim to build colloidal assemblies out of a general set of particles – metals, oxides, polymers, semiconductors, hydrogels – and to do so in a scalable manner. The outstanding students who work on this with me are listed below. Go ahead and contact them!

We have two techniques for assembly:

- “stimulus / quenching / fusing” (SQF) for doublets

- particle lithography for more complex assemblies and patterning

The SQF technique can produce doublets out of any material we have tried – as shown above – in the time it takes you to read this web page. Quick. The particle lithography technique can produce more sophisticated assemblies, with just a bit more effort.

If you have an application where you need to fabricate particles together, contact us. We’d love to help.

Students (as of Spring 2010)

Huda Jerri (PhD expected Aug 2010) – “Colloidal syringes”

Joe McDermott (PhD expected May 2011) – “Switchable Colloidal Motors”

Neetu Chaturvedi (PhD expected Dec 2010) – “Phototaxing Motors”

Laura Ramirez (PhD expected Dec 2011) – “Polloidal Chains”

Cesar Serrano (MS expected Aug 2010) – “Sedimentation Separations”

Tso-Yi Chiang (PhD expected Dec 2012) – “Gravimetric Membrane Separations”