Tuning the Morphology and Structure of Supraparticles Composed of Ellipsoids.

Evaporating droplets of colloidal dispersions on superamphiphobic surfaces is a versatile way to fabricate supraparticles with complex shape and internal morphology. Here, we investigated experimentally the formation of supraparticles consisting of polystyrene (PS) ellipsoids, with aspect ratios ranging from 4 to 11, and of sphere-ellipsoid mixtures. We demonstrated that the final supraparticle morphology can be tuned from buckled to spherical through the addition of the surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), which stabilizes the colloids within the drying droplet.