| Abstract: | Anisotropic colloids self‐assemble into different crystal structures compared to spherical colloids. Exploring and understanding their self‐assembly behavior could lead to creation of new materials with hierarchical structures through a bottom‐up process. Herein, we report metastable self‐assembly of theta‐shaped SiO2 colloids interacting with a depletion force in a quasi‐two‐dimensional space and we demonstrate that both a metastable “prone” crystal phase and a stable “standing” crystal phase can be formed, depending on the self‐assembly path. Path selection stems from an interplay between particle–particle interactions and particle–wall interactions. In particular, a twinning of the metastable crystals was observed and two twinning mirror axes were found. A variety of complex twinned crystals were formed by each individual mirror axis or their combinations. |
