TY - JOUR
T1 - Polymerization-Like Co-Assembly of Silver Nanoplates and Patchy Spheres
AU - Luo, Binbin
AU - Smith, John W.
AU - Wu, Zixuan
AU - Kim, Juyeong
AU - Ou, Zihao
AU - Chen, Qian
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Yingfeng Yang at the University of Illinois for helpful discussions on the “chain stopper” model. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering under Award No. DE-FG02-07ER46471, through the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 American Chemical Society.
PY - 2017/8/22
Y1 - 2017/8/22
N2 - Highly anisometric nanoparticles have distinctive mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties and are therefore appealing candidates for use as self-assembly building blocks. Here, we demonstrate that ultra-anisometric nanoplates, which have a nanoscale thickness but a micrometer-scale edge length, offer many material design capabilities. In particular, we show that these nanoplates "copolymerize" in a predictable way with patchy spheres (Janus and triblock particles) into one- and two-dimensional structures with tunable architectural properties. We find that, on the pathway to these structures, nanoplates assemble into chains following the kinetics of molecular step-growth polymerization. In the same mechanistic framework, patchy spheres control the size distribution and morphology of assembled structures, by behaving as monofunctional chain stoppers or multifunctional branch points during nanoplate polymerization. In addition, both the lattice constant and the stiffness of the nanoplate assemblies can be manipulated after assembly. We see highly anisometric nanoplates as one representative of a broader class of dual length-scale nanoparticles, with the potential to enrich the library of structures and properties available to the nanoparticle self-assembly toolbox.
AB - Highly anisometric nanoparticles have distinctive mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties and are therefore appealing candidates for use as self-assembly building blocks. Here, we demonstrate that ultra-anisometric nanoplates, which have a nanoscale thickness but a micrometer-scale edge length, offer many material design capabilities. In particular, we show that these nanoplates "copolymerize" in a predictable way with patchy spheres (Janus and triblock particles) into one- and two-dimensional structures with tunable architectural properties. We find that, on the pathway to these structures, nanoplates assemble into chains following the kinetics of molecular step-growth polymerization. In the same mechanistic framework, patchy spheres control the size distribution and morphology of assembled structures, by behaving as monofunctional chain stoppers or multifunctional branch points during nanoplate polymerization. In addition, both the lattice constant and the stiffness of the nanoplate assemblies can be manipulated after assembly. We see highly anisometric nanoplates as one representative of a broader class of dual length-scale nanoparticles, with the potential to enrich the library of structures and properties available to the nanoparticle self-assembly toolbox.
KW - adaptive materials
KW - chain stiffness
KW - colloidal step-growth polymerization
KW - patchy spheres
KW - self-assembly dynamics
KW - ultra-anisometric nanoplates
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U2 - 10.1021/acsnano.7b02059
DO - 10.1021/acsnano.7b02059
M3 - Article
C2 - 28715193
AN - SCOPUS:85028462315
SN - 1936-0851
VL - 11
SP - 7626
EP - 7633
JO - ACS Nano
JF - ACS Nano
IS - 8
ER -