Chemically active colloidal superstructures

Abstract

Mimicking biological systems, artificial active colloidal motors that continuously dissipate energy can dynamically self-assemble to form active colloidal superstructures with specific spatial configurations and complex functionalities, which offers a promising pathway for developing new active soft matter materials with adaptability, self-repair, and reconfigurability. Beyond merely propelling their own motion, chemically driven colloidal motors can also induce phoretic effects and osmotic flows to affect the motion of neighboring colloidal motors through local fluid fields generated by chemical reactions, thereby achieving spontaneous chemical communication and promoting dynamic self-assembly between motors. This review summarizes the latest progress in the dynamic self-assembly of chemically driven colloidal motors, ranging from single chemically driven colloidal motors to chemically driven colloidal motors with passive colloidal particles and then to different chemically driven colloidal motors, ultimately forming active colloidal superstructures with complex dynamic behaviors. Not only are the interactions between chemically driven colloidal motors with different self-propulsion mechanisms and passive colloidal particles focused on, but also the communication behaviors between chemically driven colloidal motors are explored. We explain the fundamental physicochemical mechanisms that regulate the assembly behavior of chemically driven colloidal motors, propose general strategies for the controlled construction of active colloidal superstructures, and discuss the potential applications that may emerge from the directed dynamic self-assembly of these superstructures.