Evaporation driven synthesis of supraparticles on liquid repellent surfaces

Major research efforts have recently focused on the fabrication of supraparticles from primary nano/micro colloidal particles. A relatively new and key development in this field was surface-templated evaporation driven synthesis (STED), which is a method to synthesize supraparticles by drying droplets of colloidal dispersions on liquid repellent surfaces. This method permits various colloidal particles to be assembled into supraparticles. Specifically, the low contact line friction of the dispersion-containing droplets on liquid repellent surfaces promotes the assembly of primary colloidal particles at the end of evaporation, yielding supraparticles. The STED method is advantageous by enabling the synthesis of supraparticles of various functions, sizes, shapes, compositions, and morphologies. Here, we present an overview of the STED method for supraparticle syntheses, including the (i) fundamental principles of the method and (ii) strategies to tailor the characteristics of supraparticles.