Recent breakthroughs in the synthesis and design of colloidal building blocks allow the assembly of complex structures with unprecedented control over their architecture. In particular, patchy particles exhibiting highly directional interactions enable the assembly of “colloidal molecules”, and “colloidal graphene”, analogues of the atomic compounds at the colloidal scale. Such assembly control promises fascinating applications in the design of new functional materials at micrometer and nanometer length scales.

In this talk, I will show how the combination of patchy particles and solvent-mediated interactions enables new control in the directional bonding that can be explored to build colloidal molecules and investigate their assembly kinetics and reactions. Using tetramer particles, we assemble colloidal analogs of well-known sp³-hybridized carbon compounds such as (cyclo)butane, butyne, cyclopentane, and cyclohexane, and investigate their transition states. Adsorbed at an attractive substrate, these particles assemble into two-dimensional materials such as graphene. This control applied to the nanoscale can assemble quantum dots, leading to new electronic states useful for active films in optoelectronic devices. These results demonstrate the opportunities for applications and exciting new science that can be explored with these novel colloidal architectures.