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\nModern manufacturing techniques generally require high degrees of control and intervention to get materials linked together in precise configurations. But researchers have become interested in the prospect of self-assembling systems, which can simplify existing manufacturing and allow us to produce devices on the nanoscale. Above a certain size it’s possible to use gravity to drive self-organization; on the nanoscale it’s possible to use chemical processes, like the base pairing of DNA, to drive the assembly process. That leaves an awkward range of devices on the micrometer scale in between that aren’t heavy enough for gravity to drive assembly, but too big to be pushed around by substances like DNA. A paper that will appear in PNAS<\/em> describes how it’s possible to use an oil-water interface to drive the self-assembly of 20 micron silicon solar chips into a functional array.\n<\/p>\n \nTo give some context, this is a problem that goes well beyond academic interest. The authors, Robert Kneusel and Heiko O. Jacobs, note that the majority of silicon in a typical photovoltaic cell isn’t active—it’s there to provide structural support. And, although silicon isn’t expensive compared to many metals, there are certainly cheaper materials out there that could replace it, lowering the cost of devices. It should also be possible to incorporate small photovoltaic chips into flexible and transparent materials, much as was done with LEDs<\/a>, which could greatly increase the places where solar devices could be deployed.\n<\/p>\n
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