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Many soft or fluid consumer products, such as foods, paint, lubricants, detergents, personal care products, and cosmetics, contain nanometer to micron scale structures. Nanostructured fluids are also key in industrial processes such as enhanced oil-recovery and emulsion polymerization. These structures (such as micelles, vesicles, emulsions and lamella) are formed by the spontaneous self-assembly of natural or synthetic surfactants, block copolymers, or colloids. In many cases complex mixtures of different materials are required to create the desired structure and performance. These complex materials are difficult to design, and challenging to characterize; but scientists in these industries, and in the academic groups focusing on this area, have developed considerable expertise.

Members of the broadly defined nanotechnology community are also increasingly interested in self-assembly and nanostructured fluids, which have the potential to provide robust and inexpensive strategies for creating nanoscale materials. For example, IBM recently highlighted the potential for block-copolymer self-assembly to create nanometer size structures for electronics applications.

The Nanotech conferences have a tradition of bringing together disparate groups to discover their common interests and shared challenges in fabricating, characterizing, and utilizing materials with nanometer to micron scale structure. This symposium will continue the tradition by bringing a wide range of people from industry, academia, and the broader nanotechnology community, with interests in self-assembly, nanometer to micron scale structured fluids and soft materials.