Controlled synthesis of spherical polystyrene beads and their template-assisted manual assembly

Abstract

Polystyrene beads (PS beads) with narrow size distribution were synthesized, and their diameter was controlled from 1.2 to 5 μm by varying the injection rate of a styrene solution containing initiator and the concentration of reactant, such as initiator and capping material. The diameter of the PS beads increased with increasing in the injection rates and the initiator concentration or decreasing the capping material concentration. Then, we used the PS beads as building block, and organized them into a hexagonally close-packed monolayer on substrate with template-assisted manual assembly. We showed perfect hexagonally close-packed organization of the PS beads with various sizes in large-scale area. And we demonstrated the superiority of the dry manual assembly over the wet self-assembly in terms of simplicity, speed, perfect ordering, and large scale.