Authors
Xingchen Ye, Chenhui Zhu, Peter Ercius, Shilpa N Raja, Bo He, Matthew R Jones, Matthew R Hauwiller, Yi Liu, Ting Xu, A Paul Alivisatos
Publication date
2015/12/2
Journal
Nature communications
Volume
6
Issue
1
Pages
10052
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group UK
Description
Multicomponent nanocrystal superlattices represent an interesting class of material that derives emergent properties from mesoscale structure, yet their programmability can be limited by the alkyl-chain-based ligands decorating the surfaces of the constituent nanocrystals. Polymeric ligands offer distinct advantages, as they allow for more precise tuning of the effective size and ‘interaction softness’ through changes to the polymer’s molecular weight, chemical nature, architecture, persistence length and surrounding solvent. Here we show the formation of 10 different binary nanocrystal superlattices (BNSLs) with both two- and three-dimensional order through independent adjustment of the core size of spherical nanocrystals and the molecular weight of densely grafted polystyrene ligands. These polymer-brush-based ligands introduce new energetic contributions to the interparticle potential that stabilizes various …
Scholar articles
X Ye, C Zhu, P Ercius, SN Raja, B He, MR Jones… - Nature communications, 2015