title: Hierarchical self-assembly of colloidal magnetic particles into reconfigurable spherical structures.
abstract: Colloidal self-assembly has enormous potential as a bottom-up means of structure fabrication. Here we demonstrate hierarchical self-assembly of rationally designed charge-stabilised colloidal magnetic particles into ground state structures that are topologically equivalent to a snub cube and a snub dodecahedron, the only two chiral Archimedean solids, for size-selected clusters. These spherical structures open up in response to an external magnetic field and demonstrate controllable porosity. Such features are critical to their applications as functional materials.
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK. d.chakrabarti@bham.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Morphew
authors.forename: Dwaipayan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Chakrabarti