Programmable Self-assembly of ssDNA-functionalized Liquid Crystal Droplets

Abstract

Self-assembly is a promising method to spontaneously form highly ordered structures or patterns from simple building elements. To control the interactions between these building elements, single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) has been widely used to direct the self-assembly of building elements such as hard or soft colloids. Liquid crystals (LCs) exhibit director configuration transitions in response to external stimuli. In this work, we propose a design of programmable self-assembly of LC droplets through ssDNA-functionalization. LC droplets act as a stimuli-responsive building block, and ssDNA serves as a connecting element to facilitate specific interactions among LC droplets. We demonstrate that the interaction between ssDNA-functionalized LC droplets is controlled in a desired direction and the structure of self-assembly is altered by the reconfiguration of stimuli-responsive LC droplets. Moreover, because ssDNA selectively binds to a specific target molecule (e.g., heavy metal ion) with high affinity, ssDNA-functionalized LC droplets allow us to design a highly selective detection system. This work was supported by the NRF (RS-2023-00212739, 2022M3C1A3081312).