ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2015
Electric-field-induced assembly and propulsion of chiral colloidal clusters.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 50 papers.
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Who cites it
50 citing papers in PubMed.
- Three-dimensional reconfigurable magnetic microswarms with boundary-transcending capabilities.Science advances · 2026Article
- Transport of enzymatic activity across liquid-liquid interfaces using dynamic assemblies of magnetic particles via field-modulated interactions.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Gradient-Field-Based Force-Driven Control of a Mudskipper-Inspired Magnetic Microrobot for Intestinal Applications.Micromachines · 2026Article
- Periodic asymmetric field enhances electrofusion of nanoscale lipid systems.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Density Modulations in Active Colloidal Systems through Orthogonal Propulsion Control and Sensory Delays.ACS nano · 2025Article
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- Technology Roadmap of Micro/Nanorobots.ACS nano · 2025Review
- Reconfigurable homochiral colloidal clusters assembled under orthogonally applied electric and magnetic fields.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Transient colloidal crystals fueled by electrochemical reaction products.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Microrobotic Swarms for Cancer Therapy.Research (Washington, D.C.) · 2025Review
- 3D Nanofabrication via Directed Material Assembly: Mechanism, Method, and Future.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2025Review
- Collective buoyancy-driven dynamics in swarming enzymatic nanomotors.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Influence of Electrostatic Field on Optical Rotation of D-Glucose Solution: Experimental Research for Electric Field-Induced Biological Effect.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Spearheading a new era in complex colloid synthesis with TPM and other silanes.Nature reviews. Chemistry · 2024Review
- Reconfigurable Assembly of Planar Colloidal Molecules via Chemical Reaction and Electric Polarization.Research (Washington, D.C.) · 2024Article
- Janus particles with tunable patch symmetry and their assembly into chiral colloidal clusters.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Colloidal tubular microrobots for cargo transport and compression.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Direct measurements of the colloidal Debye force.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Active Micro/Nanoparticles in Colloidal Microswarms.Nanomaterials (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Dynamics and interactions of Quincke roller clusters: From orbits and flips to excited states.Science advances · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Chiral molecules with opposite handedness exhibit distinct physical, chemical, or biological properties. They pose challenges as well as opportunities in understanding the phase behavior of soft matter, designing enantioselective catalysts, and manufacturing single-handed pharmaceuticals. Microscopic particles, arranged in a chiral configuration, could also exhibit unusual optical, electric, or magnetic responses. Here we report a simple method to assemble achiral building blocks, i.e., the asymmetric colloidal dimers, into a family of chiral clusters. Under alternating current electric fields, two to four lying dimers associate closely with a central standing dimer and form both right- and left-handed clusters on a conducting substrate. The cluster configuration is primarily determined by the induced dipolar interactions between constituent dimers. Our theoretical model reveals that in-plane dipolar repulsion between petals in the cluster favors the achiral configuration, whereas out-of-plane attraction between the central dimer and surrounding petals favors a chiral arrangement. It is the competition between these two interactions that dictates the final configuration. The theoretical chirality phase diagram is found to be in excellent agreement with experimental observations. We further demonstrate that the broken symmetry in chiral clusters induces an unbalanced electrohydrodynamic flow surrounding them. As a result, they rotate in opposite directions according to their handedness. Both the assembly and propulsion mechanisms revealed here can be potentially applied to other types of asymmetric particles. Such kinds of chiral colloids will be useful for fabricating metamaterials, making model systems for both chiral molecules and active matter, or building propellers for microscale transport.
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