Eur. Phys. J. E (2017) 40: 108
https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2017-11599-y

Regular Article

Self-assembly of smart mesoscopic objects

GRASP, CESAM Research Unit, Institute of Physics B5a, University of Liège, B4000, Liège, Belgium

^* e-mail: jmetzmacher@ulg.ac.be

Received: 27 March 2017
Accepted: 16 November 2017
Published online: 12 December 2017

Abstract

Self-assembly due to capillary forces is a common method for generating 2D mesoscale structures made of identical particles floating at some liquid-air interface. We show herein how to create soft entities that deform or not the liquid interface as a function of the strength of some applied magnetic field. These smart floating objects self-assemble or not depending on the application of an external field. Moreover, we show that the self-assembling process can be reversed opening ways to rearrange structures.