Nanopost-guided self-organization of dendritic inorganic salt structures

Numerical simulation of nanopost-guided self-organization dendritic architectures using phase-field model

Self-organized dendritic architecture is of fundamental importance and its application can be used in many natural and industrial processes. Nanopost arrays are usually used in the applications of reflecting grating and changing the material surface wettability. However, in recent research, it is found that nanopost arrays can be fabricated as passive components to induce the dendritic self-organizaed hierarchical architectures. Via this simplified Phase-Field based finite element simulation, the surface dendritic self-organized architecture morphology and expanding speed in the growing path can be controlled by nanopost structures. In addition, nanopost array arrangement on the surface affects the hierarchal architecture branching distribution. Finally, with an external applied force introduced to the system, it enables the nanopost as an active component. It is found that nanopost surroundings significantly impact the final distribution of dendritic architectures which is qualitatively in agreement with experiments and induce these dendritic architectures to form assigned character patterns after the external driving forces are introduced into the system. This novel study can fundamentally study the dynamic physics of dendritic self-organized architecutes provide an indicator for the development of smart self-organized architecture, and a great opportunity for the creation of large-scale hierarchical structures.