Self Assembly

by John A. Pelesko

Hailed as one of the key areas of nanoscience likely to shape future scientific research, self-assembly offers the most promising route to true molecular nanotechnology. Focusing on this dynamic new field, Self Assembly: The Science of Things That Put Themselves Together explores nature's self-assembly of structures, the use of it to build engineered systems, and the latest advances in the field.

Reflecting the inherent progress of the science of self-assembly, this definitive book first delves into natural self-assembling systems. It addresses crystal growth, soap films, and micelles; examines how nature builds viruses, proteins, and ribosomes; and introduces the protein folding problem. The author then discusses how physicists, chemists, biologists, and engineers are applying nature's principles to self-assemble everything from DNA cubes to millimeter-scale electronic circuits. The final chapters cover theoretical and experimental approaches to understand the phenomenon of self-assembly and overcome its various challenges.

With practical activities, profiles of leading experts, chapter highlights, exercises, and references, Self Assembly provides the most current authoritative information on this exciting branch of nanoscience.

346 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2007

Reviews

[Mangoo · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book the author, of mathematical background, reviews systems that can self-assemble. Self-assembly is a multidisciplinary research field which is lately growing in importance and potential applications. It has implications for nanotechnology, electronics, bioengineering just to name a few. Its source of inspiration is of course Nature. Therefore, the text first discusses natural examples of self-assembly, then engineering applications of such methodology/technology, and finally proposes few physico-mathematical models to control it. Destined to universities, the text has a divulgative and fluent tone. Notions are progressively introduced and with ease, and sometimes algebraic and differential equations appear (there is also an appendix on variational calculus), but generally the equations are not necessary to understand the subjects (though they may be substantial for experts). The bibliography is updated till 2007 (which means the books already needs to be updated) and each chapter includes experiments, exercises and a short biographical sketch of one of the main players in the field.
Suggested to all who want to be kindly introduced to this fascinating world, but not really to those already acquainted with it.

[Carter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much of this material is old, but the basic principles of the field, may not have changed much, since there is still a lot of exploration; it is unclear, where the path through the woodland lies... The book starts with the molecular biology of living systems, and I suspect when it comes to mechanical systems, whether principles, correctly extracted apply.