Project Info

Assembly of Colloidal Clusters With Homochirality Under Combined Electric and Magnetic Field

Anisotropic particles research has been a popular topic due to its great potential in applications ranging from colloidal assembly and microrobot design to medical therapy and drug delivery. Making homochiral structures have potential applications as sensors to detect molecules or metamaterials with exotic optical properties. In our previous experiments, we have assembled dielectric dumbbell-shaped particles into a mixture of left- and right-handed chiral clusters. In this project, both electric field and magnetic field will be applied to control cluster chirality in order to make homochiral structures.

For more information:
Ma, F., Wang, S., Wu, D. T., & Wu, N. (2015). Electric-field–induced assembly and propulsion of chiral colloidal clusters. Proceedings of the national academy of sciences, 112(20), 6307-6312.

Yang, X., & Wu, N. (2018). Change the Collective Behaviors of Colloidal Motors by Tuning Electrohydrodynamic Flow at the Subparticle Level. Langmuir, 34(3), 952-960.

Student Preparation

Qualifications

No specific laboratory skills are needed before. Some basic skills in coding/programming is preferred but not mandatory.

Student is required to attend the basic lab safety training offered by Environmental Health and Safety at Mines.

Time Commitment

6 hours/week

Skills/Techniques Gained

-Particle Synthesis Skills
-Physics and Chemistry knowledge on nano-scale material science
-Programming skills on numerical calculations
-Software development for quantitative image analysis
-Presentation skills
-Communication skills

Mentoring Plan

The graduate mentor will meet the student formally every two days per week to discuss the progress, assign short-term research goal, and teach specific skills needed. The student will be expected to join the weekly group meeting of our research group. The undergraduate researcher, graduate mentor, and I will meet once a week to discuss the research progress.