Exotic structures with interesting physical and chemical properties can be achieved by self-organizing engineered building blocks. The central aim for self-assembly is to precisely control the position and orientation of individual building blocks. In this work, we use topological defects (disclinations) in nematic liquid crystals as templates to direct the self-assembly of colloidal particles into designable 3D structures. By photopatterning preprogrammed molecular orientations at two confining surfaces, we created pre-designable disclination networks and characterized their interactions with spherical colloidal particles. We find that colloidal particles are attracted to different disclinations depending on the orientation of the point defect (elastic dipole) around the colloids. We demonstrate that the positions, network structures, and orientation of the elastic dipoles of the colloidal chains can be pre-designed and reconfigured with remote illumination of polarized light.

中文翻译：

---

通过向列液晶中的向错网络作为模板来引导和重新配置胶体组装

具有有趣的物理和化学特性的奇异结构可以通过自组织工程构建块来实现。自组装的中心目标是精确控制各个构建块的位置和方向。在这项工作中，我们使用向列液晶中的拓扑缺陷（向错）作为模板，引导胶体颗粒自组装成可设计的 3D 结构。通过在两个限制表面上对预先编程的分子取向进行光图案化，我们创建了预先设计的向错网络，并表征了它们与球形胶体颗粒的相互作用。我们发现，胶体颗粒会被不同的向错吸引，具体取决于胶体周围点缺陷（弹性偶极子）的方向。我们证明，胶体链弹性偶极子的位置、网络结构和方向可以通过偏振光的远程照明进行预先设计和重新配置。