| The controlled dissolution of microdroplets on a supporting substrate is an effective approach that can be used to tune the assembled microstructure of basic units suspended within the droplet. In this work, we studied the self-assembly of two-dimensional graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets driven by the dissolution of a microdroplet situated at the interface between a solid substrate and the surrounding liquid phase. We found that uniform microstructures form at the liquid–liquid interface of the droplets. The details of the microstructures are determined by the dissolution rate of the droplets. Furthermore, the contact boundary between the droplet and the substrate can give rise to a variety of different morphologies near the base of the droplet. Tailored three-dimensional architectures of nanosheets assembled in a dissolving droplet may be achieved through control of the wetting properties of the droplet on the supporting substrate. This process driven by the droplet dissolution is general and applicable to the self-assembly of other nanomaterials, such as nanofibers or nanoparticles.
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| Prof. Xuehua Zhang is now an associate professor in Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University, Australia. She is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and Guest Professor of University of Twente, The Netherlands. Her research interest includes colloid and interface science and nanomaterials. She has published more than 80 peer reviewed scientific papers including PNAS, PRL, JACS, ANGEW CHEM INT EDIT, ACS Nano etc (Total citations > 2350; h-index = 24). Prof. Zhang serves as an associate editor of The European Physical Journal E.
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