Premium
Creation of Faceted Polyhedral Microgels from Compressed Emulsions
Author(s) -
Fan Jing,
Kim ShinHyun,
Chen Zi,
Zhou Shaobing,
Amstad Esther,
Lin Tina,
Weitz David A.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
small
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.785
H-Index - 236
eISSN - 1613-6829
pISSN - 1613-6810
DOI - 10.1002/smll.201701256
Subject(s) - materials science , honeycomb , hexagonal prism , volume fraction , dispersity , prism , hexagonal crystal system , nanotechnology , honeycomb structure , polyhedron , drop (telecommunication) , confined space , tetrahedron , geometry , optics , crystallography , composite material , computer science , chemistry , physics , polymer chemistry , mathematics , telecommunications , organic chemistry
Compressed monodisperse emulsions in confined space exhibit highly ordered structures. The influence of the volume fraction and the confinement geometry on the organized structures is investigated and the mechanism by which structural transition occurs is studied. Based on the understanding of ordering behavior of compressed emulsions, a simple and high‐throughput method to fabricate monodisperse polyhedral microgels using the emulsions as the template is developed. By controlling the geometry of the confined spaces, a variety of shapes such as hexagonal prism, Fejes Toth honeycomb prism, truncated octahedron, pyritohedron, and truncated hexagonal trapezohedron are implemented. Moreover, the edge sharpness of each shape is controllable by adjusting the drop volume fraction. This design principle can be readily extended to other shapes and materials, and therefore provides a useful means to create polyhedral microparticles for both fundamental study and practical applications.