title: Harnessing Colloidal Crack Formation by Flow-Enabled Self-Assembly.
abstract: Self-assembly of nanomaterials to yield a wide diversity of high-order structures, materials, and devices promises new opportunities for various technological applications. Herein, we report that crack formation can be effectively harnessed by elaborately restricting the drying of colloidal suspension using a flow-enabled self-assembly (FESA) strategy to yield large-area periodic cracks (i.e., microchannels) with tunable spacing. These uniform microchannels can be utilized as a template to guide the assembly of Au nanoparticles, forming intriguing nanoparticle threads. This strategy is simple and convenient. As such, it opens the possibility for large-scale manufacturing of crack-based or crack-derived assemblies and materials for use in optics, electronics, optoelectronics, photonics, magnetic device, nanotechnology, and biotechnology.
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA.
authors.forename: Bo
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-9407-9503
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA.
authors.forename: Beibei
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Han
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA.
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA.
authors.forename: Xiao
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Cogno-Mechatronics Engineering, Department of Optics and Mechatronics Engineering, Pusan National University, Busan, 46241, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Suck Won
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Hong
authors.affiliation: Department of Advanced Materials Engineering, Keimyung University, Daegu, 704-701, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Myunghwan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Byun
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200237, China.
authors.forename: Shaoliang
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA.
authors.forename: Zhiqun
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-3158-9340
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Lin
keywords: colloidal particles; cracks; flow-enabled self-assembly; microchannel