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Plunkett A, Kampferbeck M, Bor B, Sazama U, Krekeler T, Bekaert L, Noei H, Giuntini D, Fröba M, Stierle A, Weller H, Vossmeyer T, Schneider GA, Domènech B. Strengthening Engineered Nanocrystal Three-Dimensional Superlattices via Ligand Conformation and Reactivity. ACS NANO 2022; 16:11692-11707. [PMID: 35760395 PMCID: PMC9413410 DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.2c01332] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/30/2023]
Abstract
Nanocrystal assembly into ordered structures provides mesostructural functional materials with a precise control that starts at the atomic scale. However, the lack of understanding on the self-assembly itself plus the poor structural integrity of the resulting supercrystalline materials still limits their application into engineered materials and devices. Surface functionalization of the nanobuilding blocks with organic ligands can be used not only as a means to control the interparticle interactions during self-assembly but also as a reactive platform to further strengthen the final material via ligand cross-linking. Here, we explore the influence of the ligands on superlattice formation and during cross-linking via thermal annealing. We elucidate the effect of the surface functionalization on the nanostructure during self-assembly and show how the ligand-promoted superlattice changes subsequently alter the cross-linking behavior. By gaining further insights on the chemical species derived from the thermally activated cross-linking and its effect in the overall mechanical response, we identify an oxidative radical polymerization as the main mechanism responsible for the ligand cross-linking. In the cascade of reactions occurring during the surface-ligands polymerization, the nanocrystal core material plays a catalytic role, being strongly affected by the anchoring group of the surface ligands. Ultimately, we demonstrate how the found mechanistic insights can be used to adjust the mechanical and nanostructural properties of the obtained nanocomposites. These results enable engineering supercrystalline nanocomposites with improved cohesion while preserving their characteristic nanostructure, which is required to achieve the collective properties for broad functional applications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexander Plunkett
- Institute
of Advanced Ceramics, Hamburg University
of Technology, 21073 Hamburg, Germany
| | - Michael Kampferbeck
- Institute
of Physical Chemistry, University of Hamburg, 20146 Hamburg, Germany
| | - Büsra Bor
- Institute
of Advanced Ceramics, Hamburg University
of Technology, 21073 Hamburg, Germany
| | - Uta Sazama
- Institute
of Inorganic and Applied Chemistry, University
of Hamburg, 20146 Hamburg, Germany
| | - Tobias Krekeler
- Electron
Microscopy Unit, Hamburg University of Technology, 21073 Hamburg, Germany
| | - Lieven Bekaert
- Research
Group of Electrochemical and Surface Engineering, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 1050 Brussels, Belgium
| | - Heshmat Noei
- Center
for X-ray and Nano Science CXNS, Deutsches
Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, 22607 Hamburg, Germany
| | - Diletta Giuntini
- Institute
of Advanced Ceramics, Hamburg University
of Technology, 21073 Hamburg, Germany
- Department
of Mechanical Engineering, Eindhoven University
of Technology, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands
| | - Michael Fröba
- Institute
of Inorganic and Applied Chemistry, University
of Hamburg, 20146 Hamburg, Germany
| | - Andreas Stierle
- Center
for X-ray and Nano Science CXNS, Deutsches
Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, 22607 Hamburg, Germany
- Fachbreich
Physik, University of Hamburg, 20355 Hamburg, Germany
| | - Horst Weller
- Institute
of Physical Chemistry, University of Hamburg, 20146 Hamburg, Germany
- Fraunhofer-CAN, 20146 Hamburg, Germany
| | - Tobias Vossmeyer
- Institute
of Physical Chemistry, University of Hamburg, 20146 Hamburg, Germany
| | - Gerold A. Schneider
- Institute
of Advanced Ceramics, Hamburg University
of Technology, 21073 Hamburg, Germany
| | - Berta Domènech
- Institute
of Advanced Ceramics, Hamburg University
of Technology, 21073 Hamburg, Germany
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2
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Lee MS, Yee DW, Ye M, Macfarlane RJ. Nanoparticle Assembly as a Materials Development Tool. J Am Chem Soc 2022; 144:3330-3346. [PMID: 35171596 DOI: 10.1021/jacs.1c12335] [Citation(s) in RCA: 43] [Impact Index Per Article: 21.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/17/2022]
Abstract
Nanoparticle assembly is a complex and versatile method of generating new materials, capable of using thousands of different combinations of particle size, shape, composition, and ligand chemistry to generate a library of unique structures. Here, a history of particle self-assembly as a strategy for materials discovery is presented, focusing on key advances in both synthesis and measurement of emergent properties to describe the current state of the field. Several key challenges for further advancement of nanoparticle assembly are also outlined, establishing a roadmap of critical research areas to enable the next generation of nanoparticle-based materials synthesis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Margaret S Lee
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, 13-5056 Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
| | - Daryl W Yee
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, 13-5056 Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
| | - Matthew Ye
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, 13-5056 Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
| | - Robert J Macfarlane
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, 13-5056 Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
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Valencia FJ, Amigo N, Bringa EM. Tension-compression behavior in gold nanoparticle arrays: a molecular dynamics study. NANOTECHNOLOGY 2021; 32:145715. [PMID: 33352539 DOI: 10.1088/1361-6528/abd5e8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
The mechanical properties of Au nanoparticle arrays are studied by tensile and compressive deformation, using large-scale molecular dynamics simulations which include up to 16 million atoms. Our results show that mechanical response is dominated by nanoparticle size. For compression, strength versus particle size shows similar trends in strength than full-density nanocrystals. For diameters (d) below 10 nm there is an inverse Hall-Petch (HP) regime. Beyond a maximum at 10 nm, strength decreases following a HP d -1/2 dependence. In both regimes, interparticle sliding and dislocation activity play a role. The array with 10 nm nanoparticles showed the same mechanical properties than a polycrystalline bulk with the same grain size. This enhanced strength, for a material nearly 20% lighter, is attributed to the absence of grain boundary junctions, and to the array geometry, which leads to constant flow stress by means of densification, nanoparticle rotation, and dislocation activity. For tension, there is something akin to brittle fracture for large grain sizes, with NPs debonding perpendicular to the traction direction. The Johnson-Kendall-Roberts contact theory was successfully applied to describe the superlattice porosity, predicting also the array strength within 10% of molecular dynamics values. Although this study is focused on Au nanoparticles, our findings could be helpful in future studies of similar arrays with NPs of different kinds of materials.
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Affiliation(s)
- Felipe J Valencia
- Centro de Investigación DAiTA Lab, Facultad de Estudios Interdisciplinarios, Universidad Mayor, Santiago, Chile
- CEDENNA, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, USACH, Av. Ecuador 3493, Santiago, Chile
| | - Nicolás Amigo
- Escuela de Data Science, Facultad de Estudios Interdisciplinarios, Universidad Mayor, Santiago, Chile
| | - Eduardo M Bringa
- CONICET and Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de Mendoza, Mendoza, 5500, Argentina
- Centro de Nanotecnología Aplicada, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Mayor, Chile
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Kapuscinski M, Agthe M, Lv ZP, Liu Y, Segad M, Bergström L. Temporal Evolution of Superlattice Contraction and Defect-Induced Strain Anisotropy in Mesocrystals during Nanocube Self-Assembly. ACS NANO 2020; 14:5337-5347. [PMID: 32338498 PMCID: PMC7343289 DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.9b07820] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/04/2023]
Abstract
Understanding and controlling defect formation during the assembly of nanoparticles is crucial for fabrication of self-assembled nanostructured materials with predictable properties. Here, time-resolved small-angle X-ray scattering was used to probe the temporal evolution of strain and lattice contraction during evaporation-induced self-assembly of oleate-capped iron oxide nanocubes in a levitating drop. We show that the evolution of the strain and structure of the growing mesocrystals is related to the formation of defects as the solvent evaporated and the assembly process progressed. Superlattice contraction during the mesocrystal growth stage is responsible for the rapidly increasing isotropic strain and the introduction of point defects. The crystal strain, quantified by the Williamson-Hall analysis, became more anisotropic due to the formation of stress-relieving dislocations as the mesocrystal growth was approaching completion. Understanding the formation of the transformation of defects in mesocrystals and superlattices could assist in the development of optimized assembly processes of nanoparticles with multifunctional properties.
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Affiliation(s)
- Martin Kapuscinski
- Department of Materials
and Environmental Chemistry, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Michael Agthe
- Center for Free-Electron Laser Science, University of Hamburg, 22607 Hamburg, Germany
| | - Zhong-Peng Lv
- Department of Materials
and Environmental Chemistry, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Yingxin Liu
- Department of Materials
and Environmental Chemistry, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Mo Segad
- Department of Materials
and Environmental Chemistry, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Lennart Bergström
- Department of Materials
and Environmental Chemistry, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
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Liu X, Lu P, Zhai H, Xie F. Molecular insights into the thermal stability of gold superlattices. NANOTECHNOLOGY 2019; 31:085704. [PMID: 31689690 DOI: 10.1088/1361-6528/ab546d] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
Atomistic molecular dynamics simulations are performed to study the thermal stability of bulk superlattices consisting of alkylthiol-coated gold nanocrystals. Using nanocrystals passivated by dodecanethiol chains, we show that the gold superlattice possesses a remarkable high-temperature stability, in agreement with experiment. When heated from room temperature, the superlattice expands slightly at lower temperature (<500 K) and then exhibits a considerable lattice contraction above 500 K, while maintaining the intact crystal structure up to 710 K. Once the temperature increases above 720 K, the gold superlattice becomes structurally unstable due to the local sintering of adjacent nanocrystals. Continuous heating to 750 K drives a large number of gold nanocrystals to coalesce and finally results in a tremendous destruction of the superstructure. The structural change and instability of superlattice are mainly attributed to the ligand desorption from nanocrystal surface induced by the variation in temperature. Furthermore, longer ligand length can effectively improve the thermal stability of gold superlattices. These findings are expected to provide a deep microscopic understanding of the thermal stability of superlattice materials.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xuepeng Liu
- Anhui Province Key Lab of Aerospace Structural Parts Forming Technology and Equipment, Institute of Industry and Equipment Technology, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, Anhui 230009, People's Republic of China. CAS Key Laboratory of Mechanical Behavior and Design of Materials, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, People's Republic of China. School of Mechanical Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, Anhui 230009, People's Republic of China
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Liu X, Ni Y, He L. Interaction between capped tetrahedral gold nanocrystals: dependence on effective softness. SOFT MATTER 2019; 15:8392-8401. [PMID: 31602452 DOI: 10.1039/c9sm01389j] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
Atomistic molecular dynamics simulations are performed to explore the interaction between two alkylthiol-capped tetrahedral gold nanocrystals (NCs) in a vacuum. The results highlight the influential role of the effective softness of the ligated NCs, i.e. the ratio of the ligand length to the core size. For sufficiently large softness, the relatively long ligand molecules round the shape of the NCs, causing their interaction to be nearly isotropic. For small effective softness, the relative shortness of the ligand molecules leads to a geometrically asymmetric morphology of the NCs, so that the interaction is orientation-dependent and is the strongest when the two NCs face each other with (111) facets. These findings are helpful for the understanding of interaction and structure formation in superlattices self-assembled from non-spherical ligand-capped NCs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xuepeng Liu
- Anhui Province Key Lab of Aerospace Structural Parts Forming Technology and Equipment, Institute of Industry and Equipment Technology, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, Anhui 230009, People's Republic of China.
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Liu X, Lu P, Zhai H. Molecular interaction between asymmetric ligand-capped gold nanocrystals. J Chem Phys 2019; 150:034702. [PMID: 30660164 DOI: 10.1063/1.5065476] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Atomistic molecular dynamics simulations are performed to study the potential of mean force (PMF) between two asymmetric gold nanocrystals (NCs) capped by alkylthiols in a vacuum. We systematically investigate the dependence of the PMF on the sizes and capping ligand lengths of two NCs. The results show that the potential well depth scales linearly with increasing total length of two capping ligands on asymmetric dimers, but it hardly depends on the NC size. The predicted equilibrium distance between two asymmetric NCs grows significantly and linearly with the total size of two NCs and exhibits only a slight increase with increasing total ligand length. These findings are explained in terms of the amount of ligand interdigitation between NC surfaces as well as its alterations caused by the change in ligand length and NC size. Furthermore, we introduce a simple formula to estimate the equilibrium distance of two asymmetric NCs. On the basis of the computed PMFs, we propose an empirical two-body potential between asymmetric capped gold NCs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xuepeng Liu
- Anhui Province Key Lab of Aerospace Structural Parts Forming Technology and Equipment, Institute of Industry and Equipment Technology, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, Anhui 230009, People's Republic of China
| | - Pin Lu
- Anhui Province Key Lab of Aerospace Structural Parts Forming Technology and Equipment, Institute of Industry and Equipment Technology, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, Anhui 230009, People's Republic of China
| | - Hua Zhai
- Anhui Province Key Lab of Aerospace Structural Parts Forming Technology and Equipment, Institute of Industry and Equipment Technology, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, Anhui 230009, People's Republic of China
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Çolak A, Wei J, Arfaoui I, Pileni MP. Coating agent-induced mechanical behavior of 3D self-assembled nanocrystals. Phys Chem Chem Phys 2017; 19:23887-23897. [DOI: 10.1039/c7cp02649h] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
The Young's modulus of three-dimensional self-assembled Ag nanocrystals, as so-called supracrystals, is correlated with the type of coating agent as well as the nanocrystal morphology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Arzu Çolak
- Sorbonne Universités
- UPMC Univ Paris 06
- UMR 8233
- MONARIS
- Paris
| | - Jingjing Wei
- Sorbonne Universités
- UPMC Univ Paris 06
- UMR 8233
- MONARIS
- Paris
| | - Imad Arfaoui
- Sorbonne Universités
- UPMC Univ Paris 06
- UMR 8233
- MONARIS
- Paris
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