Using controlled wandering between their metastable states, a research team led by the GRASP—Group of Research and Applications in Statistical Physics—(CESAM/Faculty of Science) ofUliège在与布鲁塞尔大学和伯戈尼大学的合作中，展示了如何操纵漂浮晶体的网状，形状和对称性。
图片来源：DeLiège大学
该研究发表在科学报告杂志。
Multi-particle systems are quite popular in various areas of physics. Interactions between them determine how they are organized. In particular, these systems have a propensity to self-assemble when favorable interactions are present, which reduces their energy.
粒欧洲杯猜球平台子可以根据相互作用的复杂程度形成简单的周期结构（晶体），或更复杂的蛋白质链（例如蛋白质链）。
Floating crystals can self-assemble at liquid surfaces due to the magnetocapillary interactions between the particles. Different states with various symmetric properties coexist for a fixed number of particles; these states are referred to as metastable states. Metastable states in floating crystals have been seen in several groundbreaking studies.
由于不同的国家共存，因此规范某些结构的出现是一项挑战。然而，防止亚稳态的出现是功能化此类组件的重要组成部分，为诸如自组装微型机器人之类的物体打开了大门。从未对控制浮动水晶状态进行研究。
Self-assembly has attracted the interest of academia and industry because of its use to fabricate tiny structures. Indeed, some structures are too large to be prepared by chemical synthesis and too small to be assembled by robotic methods. In particular, the micrometer-millimeter scale is usually the bottleneck between standard bottom-up and top-down manufacturing methods.
Nicolas Vandewalle，物理学教授，大学教授
Nicolas Vandewalle is the Director of GRASP.
除了全球最低能源状态外，自组装系统除了大量的自由度之外，还经常具有多个局部最小值。分子水平在胶体中，介质尺度和宏观尺度都是可以看到这些亚稳态状态的地方。
The use of these metastable states for active structuring has recently attracted more attention. Consequently, defining the prerequisites for hopping between the various metastable states is a critical issue that the researchers in this study tackled.
在研究中，我们刚刚发表了我们研究了由3至19个颗粒组成的磁毛细血管自组件。欧洲杯猜球平台对于组成组件的固定数量的粒子，几个不同的状态共欧洲杯猜球平台存，以其形状，网格尺寸和对称性为特色。
Ylona Collard, Study First Author and Researcher, GRASP
为了以受监管的方式在这些各种状态之间移动，研究人员提出了两种不同但免费的实验程序。对于预定数量的粒子，首先允许状态变化。欧洲杯猜球平台应用水平磁场会导致组件变形，这就是完成的方式。
The assembly will have a changed state after relaxing with a fixed probability. The second method selects the desired state for an assembly of N (number) + 1 beads from an assembly of N beads to manage the growth of an assembly.
The trajectory of the new bead delivered to the system is controlled by thermocapillary fluxes produced by an infrared laser that is applied to the water’s surface.
Vandewalle补充说：“Models have been proposed to study the frequency of occurrence of the different states of an assembly at its creation and to model the two experimental techniques. The simulations are in very good agreement with the experimental results. An analogy between these magnetocapillary assemblies, which can be reduced to a smaller size scale, and colloidal crystals has been proposed to broaden the perspectives of this work.”
This research is important for creating tiny structures like electronic circuits, microrobots, or new materials with new physical features.
期刊参考
Collard, Y.,等。(2022) Controlled transitions between metastable states of 2D magnetocapillary crystals.科学报告.doi：10.1038/s41598-022-20035-8.
资源：https://www.uliege.be/cms/c_8699436/en/uliege