Colloidomers: freely-jointed polymers made of droplets

Abstract

An important goal of self-assembly is to achieve a preprogrammed structure with high fidelity. Here, we control the valence of DNA-functionalized emulsions to make linear and branched model polymers, or `colloidomers'. The distribution of cluster sizes is consistent with a polymerization process in which the droplets achieve their prescribed valence. Conformational dynamics reveals that the chains are freely-jointed, such that the end-to-end length scales with the number of bonds $N$ as $N^{\nu }$, where $\nu \approx 3/4$, in agreement with the Flory theory in 2D. The chain diffusion coefficient $D$ approximately scales as $D\propto N^{-\nu }$, as predicted by the Zimm model. Unlike molecular polymers, colloidomers can be repeatedly assembled and disassembled under temperature cycling, allowing for reconfigurable, responsive matter.