Person:

Aizenberg, Joanna

We present a reproducible, one-pot colloidal co-assembly approach that results in large-scale, highly-ordered porous silica films with embedded, uniformly-distributed, accessible gold nanoparticles. The unique coloration of these inverse opal films combines iridescence with plasmonic effects. The coupled optical properties are easily tunable either by changing the concentration of added nanoparticles to the solution before assembly or by localized growth of the embedded Au nanoparticles upon exposure to tetrachloroauric acid solution, after colloidal template removal. The presence of the selectively absorbing particles furthermore enhances the hue and saturation of the inverse opals color by suppressing incoherent diffuse scattering. The composition and optical properties of these films are demonstrated to be locally tunable using selective functionalization of the doped opals.

Surface-associated bacteria typically form self-organizing communities called biofilms. Spatial segregation is important for various bacterial processes associated with cellular and community development. Here, we demonstrate bacterial ordering and oriented attachment on the single-cell level induced by nanometer-scale periodic surface features. These surfaces cause spontaneous and distinct patterning phases, depending on their periodicity, which is observed for several strains, both gram positive and negative. This patterning is a general phenomenon that can control natural biofilm organization.

Colloidal particles can assemble into ordered crystals, creating periodically structured materials at the nanoscale without relying on expensive equipment. The combination of small size and high order leads to strong interaction with visible light, which induces macroscopic, iridescent structural coloration. To increase the complexity and functionality, it is important to control the organization of such materials in hierarchical structures with high degrees of order spanning multiple length scales. Here, a bottom-up assembly of polystyrene particles in the presence of a silica sol-gel precursor material (tetraethylorthosilicate, TEOS), which creates crack-free inverse opal films with high positional order and uniform crystal alignment along the (110) crystal plane, is combined with top-down microfabrication techniques. Micrometer scale hierarchical superstructures having a highly regular internal nanostructure with precisely controlled crystal orientation and wall profiles are produced. The ability to combine structural order at the nano- and microscale enables the fabrication of materials with complex optical properties resulting from light-matter interactions at different length scales. As an example, a hierarchical diffraction grating, which combines Bragg reflection arising from the nanoscale periodicity of the inverse opal crystal with grating diffraction resulting from a micrometer scale periodicity, is demonstrated.

Control of self-organization of nanofibers into regular clusters upon evaporation-induced assembly is receiving increasing attention due to the potential importance of this process in a range of applications including particle trapping, adhesives, and structural color. Here we present a comprehensive study of this phenomenon using a periodic array of polymeric nanopillars with tunable parameters as a model system to study how geometry, mechanical properties, as well as surface properties influence capillary-induced self-organization. In particular, we show that varying the parameters of the building blocks of self-assembly provides us with a simple means of controlling the size, chirality, and anisotropy of complex structures. We observe that chiral assemblies can be generated within a narrow window for each parameter even in the absence of chiral building blocks or a chiral environment. Furthermore, introducing anisotropy in the building blocks provides a way to control both the chirality and the size of the assembly. While capillary-induced self-assembly has been studied and modeled as a quasi-static process involving the competition between only capillary and elastic forces, our results unequivocally show that both adhesion and kinetics are equally important in determining the final assembly. Our findings provide insight into how multiple parameters work together in capillary-induced self-assembly and provide us with a diverse set of options for fabricating a variety of nanostructures by self-assembly.