This symposium will cover a broad range of topics that focus on building advanced materials via aggregation and/or self-assembly, both experimentally and theoretically. Aggregation and self-assembly are important pathways in the formation of nature, including minerals and living systems, and has become important methods to fabricate advanced materials in both laboratory and industrial scales. To date, plentiful materials synthesized via aggregation or self-assembly have been applied in various fields such as biomedicine, energy, environment, catalysis, optics, electrics, and magnetics. For example, the interconnected nanoparticle superlattices, which were fabricated by self-assembly of Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles, have been used as anodes to improve the performance of lithium-ion batteries; the advanced luminescent materials have been prepared by aggregation-induced emission (AIE) of intrinsically non-emissive molecules.

One of the challenges facing this fast-growing field of advanced materials is to develop a fundamental understanding of aggregation/self-assembly mechanisms, which will be addressed in this symposium. Contributions will include but are not limited to 1) Advances in the synthesis of advanced materials via aggregation or self-assembly pathways; 2) Investigations into aggregation or self-assembly mechanisms; 3) Observation of the aggregation or self-assembly pathways via in situ techniques; 4) Theoretical development on the particle-based crystallization; 5) Materials with aggregation-induced emission and their applications. The Symposium aims to bring the researchers updated information on the fundamental aggregation or self-assembly research through theory to experiments. It is also designed for experienced researchers to reinforce their knowledge on the scopes of development of new techniques, especially the state-of-the-art in situ characterization tools, to understand aggregation or self-assembly mechanisms.

cluster assembly nucleation & growth self-assembly