Mechanics and scaling of thin part assembly at a fluidic interface

This paper presents an experimental and theoretical study of a high yield self-assembly process with a programmable template. An analysis of the fluidic assembly method at an air–water interface is presented with an emphasis on the combined effect of a substrate tilting angle and part size. For 1 × 1, 3 × 3 and 5 × 5 mm2 parts with 100 µm thickness, the maximum substrate tilting angles are experimentally determined and the surface tension induced torques are derived from the developed model. The result indicates that there is a limit on the lateral size of the parts that can be assembled when we use just one substrate tilting angle. Based on our analysis, we also propose a novel method that is capable of assembling parts of higher lateral dimensions using parametric changes in the substrate tilting angle.