Fig. 1: Design of self-assembly mechanism with self-regulation and stimuli-responsiveness for rational control of size and shape.
From: Stimuli-responsive self-regulating assembly of chiral colloids for robust size and shape control
a Left: self-assembly with the regulation of chirality-induced frustration, where the chirality of the building blocks induces their mutual twisting, which is incompatible with their ordered packing and stops the assembly’s growth over a certain size. Right: self-assembly without the regulation of chirality-induced frustration, where the building blocks devoid of chirality tend to repeat the same association infinitely to form an unlimited bulk. b Strategy for tuning the degree of chirality effectively expressed in the system by the balance between chirality-induced twisting and magnet-induced flattening. c Size control of the present self-regulating assembly by tuning effective chirality during the assembly is forming. d Shape change of the present self-regulating assembly by switching effective chirality after the assembly is formed.
