Programming Interaction and Assembly with Magnetic Handshake Materials

by Prof. Chrisy Xiyu Du (UH. Mech. Eng.)

Thursday Jan 23, 2025, 3:00 PM → 4:00 PM Pacific/Honolulu

Room 112 (Watanabe Hall)

Biological materials gain complexity from the programmable nature of their components. To manufacture materials with comparable complexity synthetically, we need to create building blocks with low crosstalk so that they only bind to their desired partners. Canonically, these building blocks are made using DNA strands or proteins to achieve specificity. Here we propose a new materials platform, termed Magnetic Handshake Materials, in which we program interactions through designing magnetic dipole patterns. This is a completely synthetic platform, enabled by magnetic printing technology, which is easier to both model theoretically and control experimentally. In this talk, I will give an overview of the development of the Magnetic Handshake Materials platform. I will start with discussing the theoretical foundations of how we model and design specific interactions using an information theory based framework. I will then talk about how we utilize the anisotropic nature of magnetic dipoles to design energy landscapes, leading to materials assembly and properties design. Lastly, I will briefly touch on the experimental advancement of the system, showcasing potential future applications.