Tue November 22, 2011 4:00 pm
Self-Organization Strategies: Lessons from Biology
Location:26-214
Self-assembling structures atom by atom has been one of the greatest promises of nanotechology. Periodic optical lattices, atom-light interactions, and atom-atom interactions have produced a wide range of self-assembled structures with exciting new functional properties, but many functional devices require the correct self-assembly of dissimilar parts. Living things self-assembled from such an array of disparate parts. We will consider basic challenges in the creating systems that correctly self-assemble dissimilar parts into functional structures simply, and consider how collective effects open new and exciting possibilities.