Self Assembly of Organic Microcrystals 1: Electrostatic Attachment of Polydiacetylene Microcrystals on a Polyelectrolyte Surface

Abstract

A new approach to processing organic microcrystals through electrostatic self assembly is presented. Organic microcrystals produced by a recently reported method in an aqueous medium are charge stabilized and electrostatically adsorbed on oppositely charged polyelectrolyte coated substrates. Dense “microcrystal-monolayer” coverage can be achieved by producing a coherent film of the thickness defined by the microcrystal dimension. Layer-by-layer deposition for thick film growth and adsorption on patterned substrates will be the approaches for further processing of the microcrystal systems.