{"year":"2025","title":"Electrostatics overcome acoustic collapse to assemble, adapt, and activate levitated matter","date_created":"2025-12-07T23:02:00Z","file":[{"creator":"dernst","relation":"main_file","access_level":"open_access","content_type":"application/pdf","file_id":"20744","success":1,"file_name":"2025_PNAS_Shi.pdf","date_updated":"2025-12-09T12:45:53Z","checksum":"c40dc4c909724b9d1146636612e8821a","file_size":10621381,"date_created":"2025-12-09T12:45:53Z"}],"tmp":{"legal_code_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode","name":"Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)","image":"/images/cc_by_nc_nd.png","short":"CC BY-NC-ND (4.0)"},"department":[{"_id":"ScWa"},{"_id":"CaGo"}],"publication_status":"published","_id":"20727","external_id":{"arxiv":["2507.01739"]},"day":"16","has_accepted_license":"1","language":[{"iso":"eng"}],"page":"e2516865122","acknowledged_ssus":[{"_id":"M-Shop"}],"OA_type":"hybrid","corr_author":"1","OA_place":"publisher","publisher":"National Academy of Sciences","arxiv":1,"oa_version":"Published Version","publication_identifier":{"eissn":["1091-6490"]},"article_type":"original","oa":1,"license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/","issue":"50","quality_controlled":"1","citation":{"mla":"Shi, Sue, et al. “Electrostatics Overcome Acoustic Collapse to Assemble, Adapt, and Activate Levitated Matter.” <i>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America</i>, vol. 122, no. 50, National Academy of Sciences, 2025, p. e2516865122, doi:<a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2516865122\">10.1073/pnas.2516865122</a>.","apa":"Shi, S., Hübl, M., Grosjean, G. M., Goodrich, C. P., &#38; Waitukaitis, S. R. (2025). Electrostatics overcome acoustic collapse to assemble, adapt, and activate levitated matter. <i>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America</i>. National Academy of Sciences. <a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2516865122\">https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2516865122</a>","ista":"Shi S, Hübl M, Grosjean GM, Goodrich CP, Waitukaitis SR. 2025. Electrostatics overcome acoustic collapse to assemble, adapt, and activate levitated matter. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 122(50), e2516865122.","chicago":"Shi, Sue, Maximilian Hübl, Galien M Grosjean, Carl Peter Goodrich, and Scott R Waitukaitis. “Electrostatics Overcome Acoustic Collapse to Assemble, Adapt, and Activate Levitated Matter.” <i>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America</i>. National Academy of Sciences, 2025. <a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2516865122\">https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2516865122</a>.","ieee":"S. Shi, M. Hübl, G. M. Grosjean, C. P. Goodrich, and S. R. Waitukaitis, “Electrostatics overcome acoustic collapse to assemble, adapt, and activate levitated matter,” <i>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America</i>, vol. 122, no. 50. National Academy of Sciences, p. e2516865122, 2025.","ama":"Shi S, Hübl M, Grosjean GM, Goodrich CP, Waitukaitis SR. Electrostatics overcome acoustic collapse to assemble, adapt, and activate levitated matter. <i>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America</i>. 2025;122(50):e2516865122. doi:<a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2516865122\">10.1073/pnas.2516865122</a>","short":"S. Shi, M. Hübl, G.M. Grosjean, C.P. Goodrich, S.R. Waitukaitis, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 122 (2025) e2516865122."},"doi":"10.1073/pnas.2516865122","project":[{"grant_number":"FTI23-G-011","name":"Dynamically reconfigurable self-assembly with triangular DNA-origami bricks","_id":"8dd93da8-16d5-11f0-9cad-d2c70200d9a5"}],"month":"12","file_date_updated":"2025-12-09T12:45:53Z","date_published":"2025-12-16T00:00:00Z","author":[{"id":"5c5b9247-15b2-11ec-abd3-fd958715639c","full_name":"Shi, Sue","first_name":"Sue","last_name":"Shi"},{"first_name":"Maximilian","last_name":"Hübl","id":"5eb8629e-15b2-11ec-abd3-e6f3e5e01f32","full_name":"Hübl, Maximilian"},{"last_name":"Grosjean","first_name":"Galien M","orcid":"0000-0001-5154-417X","id":"0C5FDA4A-9CF6-11E9-8939-FF05E6697425","full_name":"Grosjean, Galien M"},{"last_name":"Goodrich","first_name":"Carl Peter","orcid":"0000-0002-1307-5074","id":"EB352CD2-F68A-11E9-89C5-A432E6697425","full_name":"Goodrich, Carl Peter"},{"orcid":"0000-0002-2299-3176","id":"3A1FFC16-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87","full_name":"Waitukaitis, Scott R","last_name":"Waitukaitis","first_name":"Scott R"}],"scopus_import":"1","date_updated":"2025-12-09T14:35:27Z","acknowledgement":"We thank Dustin Kleckner, Jack-William Barotta, and Daniel M. Harris for insightful discussions. We acknowledge the Miba machine shop at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria for instrumentation support. M.C.H. and C.P.G. acknowledge funding by the Gesellschaft für Forschungsförderung Niederösterreich under project FTI23-G-011.","abstract":[{"text":"Acoustic levitation provides a unique method for manipulating small particles as it completely evades effects from gravity, container walls, or physical handling. These advantages make it a tantalizing platform for studying complex phenomena in many-particle systems. In most standing-wave traps, however, particles interact via acoustic scattering forces that cause them to merge into a single dense object. Here, we introduce a complementary approach that combines acoustic levitation with electrostatic charging to assemble, adapt, and activate complex, separated many-particle systems. The key idea is to superimpose electrostatic repulsion on the intrinsic acoustic attraction, rendering a so-called “mermaid” potential where interactions are attractive at short range and repulsive at long range. By controlling the attraction–repulsion balance, we can levitate expanded structures where all particles are separated, collapsed structures where they are in contact, and hybrid ones consisting of both expanded and collapsed components. We find that collapsed and expanded structures are inherently stable, whereas hybrid ones exhibit transient stability governed by acoustically unstable dimers. Furthermore, we show how electrostatics allow us to adapt between configurations on the fly, either by quasistatic discharge or discrete up/down charge steps. Finally, we demonstrate how large structures experience selective energy pumping from the acoustic field—thrusting some particles into motion while others remain stationary—leading to complex dynamics including coupled rotations and oscillations. Our approach establishes a design space beyond acoustic collapse, offering possibilities to study many-particle systems with complex interactions, while suggesting pathways toward scalable integration into materials processing and other applications.","lang":"eng"}],"article_processing_charge":"Yes (in subscription journal)","publication":"Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America","volume":122,"intvolume":"       122","status":"public","related_material":{"record":[{"status":"public","relation":"research_data","id":"20749"}]},"user_id":"2DF688A6-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87","ddc":["530"],"type":"journal_article"}