Multivalency Pattern Recognition to Sort Colloidal Assemblies

Multivalent interactions are an important principle for self-assembly, and have been widely used to assemble colloidal systems. However, binding partners on colloids are typically statistically distributed, which falls short of the possibilities arising from geometrically controlled multivalency patterns as for instance found in viruses. Herein, we use the ultimate precision provided by 3D DNA origamis to introduce colloidal scale multivalency pattern recognition via designing geometrically precise interaction patterns at patches of patchy nanocylinder. This gives rise to self-sorting of colloidal assemblies despite having the same type and number of supramolecular binding motifs – solely based on the pattern located on a 20 x 20 nm cross section. The degree of sorting can be modulated by the geometric overlap of patterns and homo, mixed and alternating supracolloidal polymerizations are demonstrated. We demonstrate that geometric positioning of multivalency patterns provides additional control to organize soft matter, and we believe the concept to be of importance for engineering biological response and to be generalizable for other precision nanoparticles and soft matter objects.