Self-Assembly of Colloidal Building Blocks into Complex and Controllable Structures

Colloids are small particles with at least one of their dimensions in the range of a few nanometers to one micrometer, where Brownian motion plays a critical role.1–3 They are analogous to giant molecules in some respects, and behave in fair agreement with statistical mechanics.4 Since the pioneering work by Faraday and Graham more than 140 years ago, colloids has become a subject of great importance to many fields that include chemistry, biology, materials science, condensed matter physics, applied optics, and fluid dynamics.5–15 The enormous impact of colloids can also be appreciated by their extensive use in a variety of commercial products such as foods, drinks, inks, paints, toners, coatings, papers, cosmetics, photographic films, and magnetic recording media.