Sandcastles inspire new nanoparticle binding technique | EurekAlert! Science News
If you want to form very flexible chains of nanoparticles in liquid in order to build tiny robots with flexible joints or make magnetically self-healing gels, you need to revert to childhood and think about sandcastles.
In a paper published this week in Nature Materials, researchers from North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill show that magnetic nanoparticles encased in oily liquid shells can bind together in water, much like sand particles mixed with the right amount of water can form sandcastles.
"Nanocapillary-mediated magnetic assembly of nanoparticles into ultraflexible filaments and reconfigurable networks"
Authors: Bhuvensh Bharti and Orlin D. Velev, North Carolina State University; Anne-Laure Fameau, National Institute of French Agricultural Research; Michael Rubenstein, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Published: Aug. 3, 2015, online in Nature Materials
DOI: 10.1038/nmat4364
