Final Report Self Assembly Of Non Spherical Colloids

The frontier for light-matter interactions in materials organized at the mesoscale holds promise to realize exciting applications in solid state lighting, solar energy conversion, thermal photovoltaics and subwavelength imaging, to name a few. Colloidal self-assembly provides a low cost, large area approach to the fabrication of templates for structuring functional materials chemistries through atomic layer deposition, chemical vapor deposition and physical vapor deposition. However, the commonly available spherical building blocks lead to high symmetry periodic dielectric materials with weak light control that have limited impact in photonics. Increasing focus on atypical colloidal structures is uncovering novel partial order mesophases (i.e., degenerate crystals, plastic crystals), quasicrystals, Archemedean tilings and superlattices with dramatic effects on dispersion relations. More generally, the desire for complex function from simple building blocks has ignited experimental efforts using supramolecular chemistry (i.e., specific interactions and directional bonding analogs) to diversify structure. Our work focuses on the colloidal analog to the rich phase space mapped by molecular solids. Through experiments and complementary modelling we advance synthesis and processing science to control phase behavior and dynamics through particle architecture, quiescent confinement and shear flows.