Advances in Strategies for Colloidal Self-Assembly

The colloidal self-assembly organizes micro/nano-sized building blocks into large objects with periodic, quasi-periodic, or disordered structures. The obtained entities are functionalizable with smart building blocks and matrices, as well as the nanoscale symmetry, orientation, phase, and dimension of the structures. Various functionalizations of colloidal self-assemblies promise their applications in many areas, such as energy, microrobots, biomedicine, and communications. Given the importance, the methodology underlying colloidal self-assembly is highly required to be systematically analyzed. This review aims to comprehensively summarize advances in the techniques of colloidal self-assembly. For each strategy, we discuss the resultant colloidal structures, advantages, and limitations. The benefits of the new assemblies over the existing ones are also highlighted. Diverse driving forces and general characterization approaches are briefly introduced to help readers understand the self-assembly techniques. The review concludes with a summary of the challenges in colloidal self-assembly and a perspective on further advances in this field.