A Facile Interfacial Self-Assembly of Crystalline Colloidal Monolayers by Tension Gradient.

ABSTRACT: Many self-assembly approaches of colloidal monolayers have flourished but with some shortages, such as complexity, time-consumption, parameter sensitivity, and high-cost. This paper presents a facile, rapid, well-controlled, and low-cost method to prepare monolayers by directly adding silica particle suspensions containing water and ethanol to different liquids. A detailed analysis of the self-assembly process was conducted. The particles dove into water firstly, then moved up under the effect of the buoyancy and the tension gradient. The tension gradient induced the Marangoni convection and the relative motion between the water and the particles. At last, the particles were adsorbed at the air-water interface to minimize the free energy. The quality of the monolayers depended on the addit

SUBMITTER: Feng D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6187851 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature