Scientists program the lifetime of self-assembled nanostructures
Materials that self-assemble and self-destruct once their work is done are highly advantageous for a number of applications – as components in temporary data storage systems or for medical devices. For example, such materials could seal blood vessels during surgery and re-open them subsequently. Dr. Andreas Walther, research group leader at DWI – Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials in Aachen, developed an aqueous system that uses a single starting point to induce self-assembly formation, whose stability is pre-programmed with a lifetime before disassembly occurs without any additional external signal – hence presenting an artificial self-regulation mechanism in closed conditions. Their results are published as this week's cover article in Nano Letters.