Self-organization as a new method for synthesizing smart and structured materials

Self-organization in chemical systems may be a basis for entirely new 21st-century technologies. During self-organization, concentrations of chemical species spontaneously organize in space and time, forming a variety of complex structures. Examples of these structures are Turing patterns which result from interaction between chemical kinetics and diffusion. In this paper we report numerical studies of Turing structures that develop spontaneously from single perturbations. Many of these structures are built from layers of different chemical concentrations. Others form skeletal type patterns, or respond to environment. These structures may find applications in formation of highly structured or smart materials.