Phys.org June 13, 2024
Checkerboard lattices—where the resulting structure is open, porous, and highly symmetric—are difficult to create by self-assembly. Synthetic systems that adopt such structures typically rely on shape complementarity and site-specific chemical interactions that are only available to biomolecular systems (e.g., protein, DNA). A team of researchers in the US (University of California at San Diego, Duke University) demonstrated the assembly of checkerboard lattices from colloidal nanocrystals that harnessed the effects of multiple, coupled physical forces at disparate length scales and that did not rely on chemical binding. Colloidal Ag nanocubes were bi-functionalized with mixtures of hydrophilic and hydrophobic surface ligands and subsequently assembled at an air–water interface. Using feedback between molecular dynamics simulations and interfacial assembly experiments, they achieved a periodic checkerboard mesostructure that represented a tiny fraction of the phase space associated with the polymer-grafted nanocrystals used in the experiments. According to the researchers their work expanded the knowledge of non-specific nanocrystal interactions and presented a computation-guided strategy for designing self-assembling materials… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Self-assembly of checkerboard mesophase from Ag nanocrystals. Credit: Nature Communications volume 15, Article number: 3913 (2024)