Optomechanically Assisted Assembly of Surface-Functionalized Zeolite-L-Based Hybrid Soft Matter

Barroso Á., Buscher T., Ahlers K., Studer A., Denz C.

Abstract

Nanoporous particles are particularly interesting for the assembly of functionalnano- and microsystems because they provide hierarchical supramolecularorganization of a large variety of guest molecules. In this work, arbitrarynanoarchitectures consisting of nanoporous zeolite-L crystals are assembledby combining holographic optical tweezers (HOT) with polymer brushfunctionalized particles to overcome the limitations of 1D and restricted selfassemblyof zeolite-L crystals. Readily prepared and functionalized polymershells allow for controlled, instant, and highly efficient particle-particle andparticle-surface adhesion without the need for an external trigger. In contrastto earlier studies, these assemblies remain permanently stable after release outof the HOT system. This novel strategy can be used to fabricate either motileunits or locally grounded 1D, 2D, and 3D microconstructions, which can befurther utilized as microtools in microfluidic and nanophotonic applications.