Field-induced assembly of colloidal ellipsoids into well-defined microtubules

The design and production of future materials would enormously benefit if we were capable of self-assembling nanostructures with the precision and reliability found in biological self-assembly. Currently there seems to exist a consensus that a successful model for the formation of biological nanostructure such as microtubules or tubular viruses through self-assembly requires a monomer geometry that already has a preferred curvature explicitly built in.