Scientists Create Self-Assembling Materials: Dancing Magnetic Water Droplets (Video)

Self-assembling materials could be a huge asset to future technological applications. Now, scientists have created some. They've placed water droplets containing magnetic nanoparticles on strong water repellent structures to make them align in various static and dynamic structures using periodically oscillating magnetic fields.

Self-assembly is a process in which interacting bodies are driven into ordered structures--and it's not surprising that the technique interests scientists. Creating responsible and intelligent systems and materials has long been a goal for researchers. For example, clothes that can "heal" tears or devices that can fix themselves would be a huge asset to our daily lives. This latest experiment doesn't tackle applicable uses, but it does show reversible switching between static and dynamic self-assembly, paving the way for future research.

"The structure formation can either be static, driven by energy minimization, or dynamic, driven by continuous energy feed," said Olli Ikkala, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Over the years we have managed to create functional materials based on static self-assembled hierarchies. This model system paves the way towards even more versatile dynamic materials, wherein the structures are formed by feeding energy."

Using the new model system, the researchers showed that static droplet patterns can transform reversibly into dynamic ones when energy is fed to the system via an oscillating magnetic field. The transition was complex and the most complicated patterns emerged when the energy feed was just enough to enter the dynamic self-assembly regime.

The droplet patterns varied in different patterns, shifting and changing depending on the fields. "In some patterns, the motion of the droplets resembles that of dancing," admitted Jaakko Timonen, one of the researchers, in a news release. "We find it simply beautiful."

The findings are published in the journal Science.

Want to see the experiment for yourself? Check out the video below, courtesy of YouTube.