Control of Orientation, Formation of Ordered Structures, and Self-Sorting of Surface-Functionalized Microcubes at the Air–Water Interface

The dependence of the orientation of microscale PS cubes, which are surface functionalized on only five faces, at the water/air interface and the ordered aggregates formed by capillary force assembly are reported. Depending on the wettability of the faces, the cubes were shown to adopt a preferred orientation that changes with decreasing wettability from face up to edge up and further to vertex up. Concomitantly, stable aggregates with different structures were formed by capillary force self-assembly. The unmodified bottom face of the cubes was localized by fluorescence labeling. Finally, self-sorting of differently surface functionalized microcubes was realized for the first time, due to the stronger capillary interactions of quadrupole-quadrupole and hexapole-hexapole interactions compared to quadrupole-hexapole interaction.