Self-assembly of micrometre-scale polymer structures using biochemical recognition

Abstract

Polymer beads with diameters at the micrometre scale have been made to self-assemble into geometrical shapes by coating part or all of their surfaces with ligands or their corresponding receptors and by using other similar chemistries. This gives a mechanism of micro-self-assembly for engineering, and also for other applications. Experiments are reported here on simple binding, binding with carefully chosen bead diameters that make the assembly of certain shapes more probable than others, and finally on the binding of beads to single-patch active sites on others that give the best control over the geometry of the resulting assemblies.