Figure 7.

Assemblies of non‐absorptive objects. a) Scheme of the setup used for manipulation of non‐absorptive objects at the FC‐40/dyed DMF interface. Panel b) illustrates the control principle used in such experiments. Yellow lines represent the shapes traced by the laser; the more intense the yellow color, the slower the laser moves and, consequently, the more heat is delivered to the dyed liquid at a specific location. Laser speeds are slower in the vicinity of objects that are closer to the periphery of the formation (measured from the formation's center of mass, denoted by white “+”), or those further away from their destination points. White arrow indicates the movement direction of the last bead being assembled while other, already assembled particles, are held stationary. c–e) Experimental microscope (top row in (c) and (d), left column in (e)) and side‐view camera (bottom row in (c) and (d), right column in (e)) images of non‐absorptive objects manipulated/organized at the interface between FC‐40 and dyed DMF, also demonstrated in Movie S6 (Supporting Information). c) Translational motion (left) and rotation (right) of a 2.7 mm brass gear held at the interface by capillarity. d) 31 hollow glass beads, each 120–150 µm in diameter, arranged into and interconverted between quasicrystalline (Penrose P3, left) and hexagonal (right) lattices; the lattices are indicated in partial overlay. More patterns are shown in e) whereby 16 of the same glass beads form, top to bottom, square and hexagonal lattices, a cat, and a smiley face. Scale bars in (c) to (e) are 1 mm.