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Building the Future Brick by Brick: Technology-Directed Self-Assembly Using External Fields Imagine a world where complex structures, from intricate microchips to sophisticated biocompatible materials, assemble themselves with unprecedented precision and efficiency. This isn't science fiction; it's the promise of technology-directed self-assembly (TDSA), a revolutionary field leveraging external fields to orchestrate the spontaneous organization of building blocks into desired configurations. Traditional manufacturing relies on laborious and often energy-intensive methods. TDSA offers a paradigm shift, mimicking nature's elegant self-assembly processes found in biological systems like proteins folding into complex shapes. By applying carefully controlled external stimuli – be it magnetic, electric, optical or even acoustic – we can guide the interactions between these building blocks, driving them to assemble themselves into intricate...