Self-assembly as a research area investigates the spontaneous organization of components into ordered structures driven by local interactions and thermodynamic or kinetic principles, without direct external manipulation of each element. It encompasses molecular, nanoscale, and mesoscale systems where noncovalent forces (e.g., van der Waals, electrostatic, hydrophobic, hydrogen bonding) or specific binding interactions encode structural information. Research focuses on understanding design rules, energy landscapes, and defect formation, as well as developing programmable systems (e.g., DNA origami, block copolymers, colloidal crystals) for applications in materials science, nanotechnology, and biotechnology, often linking equilibrium self-assembly with nonequilibrium and hierarchical assembly processes.
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in using silver nanoclusters (Ag NCs), nanoscale silver particles composed of tens to hundreds of atoms, across various fields like material science, chemistry, and biology. ...
Nanomaterials
Jul 27, 2023
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A team of bioengineers at Arizona State University has found a way to use a LEGO robot as a gradient mixer in one part of a process to create DNA origami nanostructures. In their paper published on the open-access site PLOS ...
Griffith University researchers have played a key role in using DNA "origami" templates to control the way viruses are assembled.
Bio & Medicine
Jul 17, 2023
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In nature, it is common to find structures that combine both soft and hard material. These structures are responsible for diverse mechanical properties and functions of biological systems. As a typical example, the human ...
Bio & Medicine
Jul 6, 2023
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Materials scientists are often bioinspired, and in a new study, bird-inspired by structural colors exhibited by avian species to form non-iridescent nanoparticle assemblies. Such nanoparticle mixtures varying in particle ...
Chemotherapy that does not harm the body, but effectively fights cancer cells: that is the goal of chemist Sylvestre Bonnet and his team. During his Ph.D. research, chemist Xuequan Zhou brought that goal a little closer. ...
Bio & Medicine
May 12, 2023
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As genetic information carriers, nucleic acid molecules have been developed as gene therapeutic drugs. On the basis of complementary base pairing, nucleic acid can not only encode functional genes, but also precisely self-assemble ...
Bio & Medicine
Apr 25, 2023
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Using a targeted computational approach, researchers in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Cornell University have found more than 20 new self-assembled crystal structures, none of which had been observed ...
Nanomaterials
Apr 24, 2023
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Prof. Peng Chenhui's team from the School of Physics, University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), realized the collective transfer and reconfigurable self-assembly of colloidal particles by combining the light-driven ...
Nanophysics
Apr 21, 2023
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Researchers from Tsinghua University synthesized porous yolk-shell NiO nanospheres (PYS-NiO NSs) via a solvothermal and subsequent calcination process of Ni-MOF. As the large specific surface areas and hollow porous nanostructures ...
Nanomaterials
Apr 17, 2023
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