According to researchers, nanosized cubes can naturally form a two-dimensional checkerboard pattern when put on top of the water. This opens up new opportunities for advanced optical uses.
(Photo: Pexels/ Fahmi Garna)
New Progress in Self-Assembling Nanocubes
This new method, described in a recent study in Nature Communications, uses self-assembly to make complex nanoparticles. The study group, led by Professor Andrea Tao at the University of California, San Diego, devised a way for nanocubes of silver crystals to form on water surfaces.
Each nanocube is covered with a mix of molecules that repel water and molecules that draw water. These molecules are what make the self-assembly process happen.
Tao talked about an interesting method for building materials, so there's no need for complicated adjustments in a nanofabrication lab. She likes this method because it's easy and effective, and he thinks it's a "cool" way to make new materials.
When these nanocubes hit the top of the water, they line up so that their corners touch. This makes a checkerboard pattern with solid cubes and empty spaces.
The nanocubes' surface chemistry is very important for this self-assembly. The cubes stick together because they have hydrophobic molecules on their sides that stop them from reacting with water. At the same time, the hydrophilic molecules push the cubes away from each other enough to make spaces between them, which is what makes the checkerboard pattern.
Experts made these structures by putting drops of the nanocube suspension on a Petri dish with water. After making the checkerboard designs, they were put on a substrate by slowly dipping it into the water and pulling it out again, letting the nanostructure cover the substrate.
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Possible Application of The Groundbreaking Discovery
Several UC San Diego Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) research groups worked together on this project. The team used computer modeling and experiments to develop and test the nanocube-building process.
Tao explained their creative method: setting up a constant feedback loop between experiments and computations. She said computer simulations helped them create nanoscale materials and determine how they would behave. Then, the results of their trials were used to improve these simulations.
Tao's lab knowledge about how to make silver crystal nanocubes played a role in the choice. Gaurav Arya from Duke University led many computer experiments that found the best surface chemistry for the nanocubes. Electron microscopy by Alex Frañó's lab at UC San Diego proved what the simulations said about how the cubes would interact and form on the water's surface.
Tao thinks the nanocube checkerboard could be used in visual sensing in important ways. She said that this kind of nanostructure could change light in exciting ways.
She said that the spaces between the cubes, especially near the corners, could act as tiny points that focus or block light. This feature might help make new optical parts, like nanoscale filters or waveguides.
In future tests, the researchers want to investigate how the checkerboard structures affect light. Determining how these nanoparticles interact with light could improve optical sensing technologies.
Checkerboard lattices are complex to make through self-assembly because their structures are open, porous, and symmetrical. This study shows an excellent way to combine these structures using colloidal nanocrystals. This helps us learn more about how nanocrystals interact with each other in general. The study also discusses creating materials that can be combined using computations. This could change the field of nanotechnology in a big way.
Researchers made a periodic checkerboard mesostructure using the effects of several physical forces at different scales. This is a big step forward in nanotechnology. Not only does this discovery help us understand how things self-assemble, but it opens the door to more advances in material science and optical uses in the future.
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