Soft Matter Seminar: "Engineering Information-Encoded Building Blocks for Microscopic Self-Assembly: The Magnetic Handshake Platform"

Please join the Soft Matter/Biophysics Group in welcoming Zexi Liang, postdoctoral researcher at Cornell University, for his talk titled, "Engineering Information-Encoded Building Blocks for Microscopic Self-Assembly: The Magnetic Handshake Platform."

Abstract: The challenge of creating complex materials from the bottom up requires building blocks with highly programmable interactions. This talk introduces our 'magnetic handshake' platform, which addresses this by encoding multi-bit magnetic 'barcodes' onto individual microscopic particles using multiple types of nanomagnets. These information-encoded particles form highly specific, orthogonal bonds only with their complements, a principle we have experimentally validated by achieving near-perfect pairing accuracy in complex mixtures of up to 20 unique species. This unprecedented control enables addressable self-assembly, allowing us to build programmed 1D and 2D microstructures and engineer their emergent properties. Ultimately, this platform establishes a scalable route towards creating dynamic and reconfigurable systems.