Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Self-Assembly

Self-assembly is the autonomous organization of components into patterns or structures without human intervention. Self-assembling processes are common throughout nature and technology. They involve components from the molecular (crystals) to the planetary (weather systems) scale and many different kinds of interactions. The concept of self-assembly is used increasingly in many disciplines, with a different ßavor and emphasis in each.(G.M. Whitesides,2002)