Electrostatically Enhanced Nanocrystal Superlattice Assembly

Paper Title:

Enhancing nanocrystal superlattice self-assembly near a metastable liquid binodal

Published on:

25 April 2024

Primary Category:

Soft Condensed Matter

Paper Authors:

Christian P. N. Tanner,

Vivian R. K. Wall,

Joshua Portner,

Ahhyun Jeong,

Avishek Das,

James K. Utterback,

Leo M. Hamerlynck,

Jonathan G. Raybin,

Matthew J. Hurley,

Nicholas Leonard,

Rebecca B. Wai,

Jenna A. Tan,

Mumtaz Gababa,

Chenhui Zhu,

Eric Schaible,

Christopher J. Tassone,

David T. Limmer,

Samuel W. Teitelbaum,

Dmitri V. Talapin,

Naomi S. Ginsberg

Bullets

Key Details

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Electrostatics tune nanocrystal interactions to access distinct assembly pathways

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In situ X-ray scattering distinguishes solid, liquid, and colloidal phases

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Metastable liquid intermediate enhances assembly rate and superlattice order

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Quantitative analysis extracts system phase behavior and kinetics

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Liquid presence increases rate while improving resulting crystal quality

Explore the topics in this paper

electrostatic interactions

nanocrystal assembly

nanomaterial fabrication

ordered superlattices

x-ray scattering

AI generated summary

Electrostatically Enhanced Nanocrystal Superlattice Assembly

This paper investigates how electrostatic interactions between semiconductor nanocrystals can be tuned to control their assembly into ordered superlattice arrays. Using in situ X-ray scattering, the authors systematically study the phase behavior and kinetics as they vary nanocrystal concentration and solution ionic strength. They identify one- and two-step assembly pathways, with the latter proceeding through a metastable liquid intermediate. This liquid phase increases assembly rates and enhances superlattice order compared to direct assembly, offering a generalizable strategy to optimize nanomaterial fabrication.