Synthesis of flat, skateboard colloidal particles with triaxial asymmetry using the film deformation method.

Abstract

We produce prolate ellipsoidal polymeric colloids with triaxial asymmetry, resembling the shape of a skateboard. The particles are characterized by unequal polar and equatorial semiaxes and are produced by a simple modification to the film squeezing method, which conventionally yields only biaxially symmetric spheroids. These particles contribute to the growing library of shape anisometric polymer colloids and given their unequal principal axes, they could serve as interesting building blocks for designing colloidal systems such as crystals, gels and active suspensions.