Directing colloidal self-assembly with biaxial electric fields

Hexagonal sheets of colloidal particles self-assemble in a biaxial electric field and can be made permanent by thermal annealing. One can also rapidly switch the suspension structure from isotropic, to 1D strings and 2D sheets, which is useful for applications that require anisotropic suspension properties. Thus, multiaxial fields offer a flexible way to manipulate colloidal interactions and their self-assembled structures.