The scalable synthetic route to colloidal atoms has significantly advanced over the past two decades. Recently, colloidal clusters with DNA-coated cores called “patchy colloidal clusters” have been developed, providing a directional bonding with specific angle of rotation due to the shape complementarity between colloidal clusters. Through a DNA-mediated interlocking process, they are directly assembled into low-coordination colloidal structures, such as cubic diamond lattices. Herein, the significant progress in recent years in the synthesis of patchy colloidal clusters and their assembly in experiments and simulations is reviewed. Furthermore, an outlook is given on the emerging approaches to the patchy colloidal clusters and their potential applications in photonic crystals, metamaterials, topological photonic insulators, and separation membranes.

中文翻译：

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胶体构建模块的进展：走向斑片状胶体簇

在过去的二十年里，胶体原子的可扩展合成路线取得了显着进步。最近，开发了具有 DNA 涂层核心的胶体簇，称为“片状胶体簇”，由于胶体簇之间的形状互补性，它提供了具有特定旋转角度的定向键合。通过 DNA 介导的互锁过程，它们直接组装成低配位的胶体结构，例如立方金刚石晶格。在此，综述了近年来在斑片状胶体簇的合成及其在实验和模拟中的组装方面取得的重大进展。此外，还展望了斑片状胶体团簇的新兴方法及其在光子晶体、超材料、拓扑光子绝缘体、