Switchable self-assembled capillary structures

Abstract

Capillarity driven self-assembly is a way to create spontaneous structures along liquid interfaces in between bottom-up and top-down fabrication methods. Based on multipolar capillary interactions between elementary floating object, simple to complex structures can been achieved by designing objects with specific 3D shapes. We show herein that a switchable self-assembled structure can be obtained with a shape memory polymer. At a defined temperature of the liquid, the 3D shape of each elementary floating object changes, modifying the capillary interactions thus forcing the stable structure to disassemble and to form a new arrangement. Based on simulations and experiments, we study how this cooperative behavior induces metastable complex configurations.