Direct Write Assembly Visualization on Materials Today Cover

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Created 7/5/2004 5:00:00 AM

Nature provides an elegant example of "direct-write assembly" in the form of spider webs. In work by Jennifer Lewis and Greg Gratson, synthetic polyelectrolyte inks have been created for writing three-dimensional webs comprised of microperiodic filaments. The fluid ink is deposited into a coagulation reservoir to induce desired changes in ink rheology required for fine-scale printing. This image is a visualization of this process produced in the Visualization, Media, and Imaging Laboratory as a potential cover submission. The filament diameter in the image, based on the actual structures, is 1 um. It was produced using Cerius, mol2mel, Maya, and Photoshop, and was selected for the July/August 2004 issue of Materials Today to accompany an article by the authors.

Credits

• Jennifer Lewis , Autonomous Materials Systems, Beckman Institute Greg Gratson
• Benjamin Grosser , ITG, Beckman Institute
• Greg Gratson , Autonomous Materials Systems, Beckman Institute Greg Gratson