Making Things by Self-Assembly

Abstract

Self-assembly—the spontaneous generation of order in systems of components—is ubiquitous in chemistry; in biology, it generates much of the functionality of the living cell. Self-assembly is relatively unused in microfabrication, although it offers opportunities to simplify processes, lower costs, develop new processes, use components too small to be manipulated robotically, integrate components made using incompatible technologies, and generate structures in three dimensions and on curved surfaces. The major limitations to the self-assembly of micrometer- to millimeter-sized components (mesoscale self-assembly) do not seem to be intrinsic, but rather operational: selfassembly can, in fact, be reliable and insensitive to small process variations, but fabricating the small, complex, functional components that future applications may require will necessitate the development of new methodologies. Proof-of-concept experiments in mesoscale self-assembly demonstrate that this technique poses fascinating scientific and technical challenges and offers the potential to provide access to hard-to-fabricate structures.