Self-Assembly of 10-μm-Sized Objects into Ordered Three-Dimensional Arrays

This paper describes the self-assembly of small objects—polyhedral metal plates with largest dimensions of 10 to 30 μm—into highly ordered, three-dimensional arrays. The plates were fabricated using photolithography and electrodeposition techniques, and the faces of the plates were functionalized to be hydrophobic or hydrophilic using self-assembled monolayers (SAMs). Self-assembly occurs in water through capillary interactions between thin films of a hydrophobic liquid (a liquid prepolymer adhesive) coated onto the hydrophobic faces of the plates; coalescence of the adhesive films reduces the interfacial free energy of the system and drives self-assembly. By altering the size and surface-patterning of the plates, the external morphologies of the aggregates were varied. Curing the adhesive furnished mechanically stable aggregates that were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). For assemblies formed by plates partially composed of a sacrificial material, a subsequent etching step furnished fully open, three-dimensional microstructures. This work validates the use of capillary interactions for three-dimensional mesoscale self-assembly in the 10-μm-size regime and opens new avenues for the fabrication of complex, three-dimensional microscructures.