Advantages and disadvantages of electrostatic self-assembly

Despite the fact that ESA has become widely used in recent years, certain details of the process are stiU not clearly understood. For example, the existence of a minimum time required to complete the deposition process has not been fully explained from first principles. The dynamics of the intermediate washing and drying steps have not been well characterized either. 

A quantitative evaluation of the assembly process will be necessary to make ESA a practical commercial method. ESA is also influenced by a variety of factors that may be difficult to control, such as polymer entropy, charge transfer interactions and hydrogen bonding. No single theory has been developed to completely describe the deposition process. However, a variety of seminal studies have clarified many aspects of the ESA method.  

By manipulating the size and the interparticle distances of monodispersed nanoparticles within self-assembled films, novel optic devices may be 

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