The field of self-assembly has moved far beyond early work, where the focus was primarily the resultant beautiful two- and three-dimensional structures, to a focus on forming materials and devices with important properties either otherwise not available, or only available at great cost. Over the last few years, materials with unprecedented electronic, photonic, energy-storage, and chemical separation functionalities were created with self-assembly, while at the same time, the ability to form even more complex structures in two and three dimensions has only continued to advance. Self-assembly crosscuts all areas of materials. Functional structures have now been realized in polymer, ceramic, metallic, and semiconducting systems, as well as composites containing multiple classes of materials. As the field of self-assembly continues to advance, the number of highly functional systems will only continue to grow and make increasingly greater impacts in both the consumer and industrial space.

自组装的领域已经远远超出了早期的工作范围，早期的工作重点主要是形成漂亮的二维和三维结构，而转向成型具有重要特性的材料和设备，否则这些材料或设备将无法获得，或者只能在很大程度上获得。成本。在过去的几年中，具有空前的电子，光子，能量存储和化学分离功能的材料是通过自组装创建的，而同时，在二维和三维中形成甚至更复杂的结构的能力一直在持续。推进。自组装横切了材料的所有区域。功能结构现已在聚合物，陶瓷，金属和半导体系统以及包含多种材料的复合材料中实现。随着自组装领域的不断发展，