Capillary self-folding chains

Abstract

Mesoscale self-assembly provides a route toward the design of programmable microsystems. Here, we construct flexible chains of floating monomers whose curved branches impose upward or downward deformations of the liquid interface, corresponding to effective positive or negative capillary charges. These geometrically encoded deformations generate local attractive or repulsive interactions along the chain. By tuning the capillary sequence, we obtain distinct folded configurations, including straight lines, zigzag patterns, and loops. For short chains, folding is largely governed by nearest-neighbor interactions and leads to well-defined structures. As the chain length increases and non-neighboring segments come into proximity and interact, however, the folding landscape becomes increasingly complex, with multiple metastable states whose number grows exponentially with chain length. We map these landscapes numerically and demonstrate experimentally that mechanical agitation allows the chains to transition between metastable configurations. Beyond encoding a target geometry, the capillary sequence therefore controls the complexity of the folding landscape as well as the degeneracy and mutational robustness of folded structures. These results establish capillary chains as a controllable mesoscale platform for investigating how local interaction rules give rise to collective folding and complex sequence-to-structure relationships reminiscent of those encountered in biomolecular systems.