We present a controlled cascade of self-assemblings of colloidal droplets at a nematic liquid crystal–air interface into large-scale ordered structures. Changing the tilt of the droplet-induced elastic dipoles via its dependence on the nematic film thickness, we are able to control the dipole-dipole interaction and thus the self-assembling regime. For a progressively large tilt, droplets form anisotropic lattices, which then transform into arrays of repulsive chains, then to bands of half-period-shifted densely bound chains. These structures with chain order at the inner scale aggregate into different large-scale clusters that have a pronounced circular pattern and are stabilized by the many-body elastocapillary attraction.

• Received 29 March 2019
• Revised 4 June 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.087801