Posted by iacovecr on Monday, October 31, 2011 in Recent Publications.

Citation:

Glotzer SC, Horsch MA, Iacovella CR, Zhang ZL, Chan ER, Zhang X, (2005) Self-assembly of anisotropic tethered nanoparticle shape amphiphiles, Current Opinion in Colloid & Interface Science, 10, pp 287–295

DOI:10.1016/j.cocis.2005.09.011

Abstract:

The varied and exotic shapes of new nanoscale organic and inorganic building blocks provide new opportunities to engineer materials possessing specific functionality and physical properties dictated by the unique packings of these particles. We briefly review some of the current strategies for inducing the self-assembly of these building blocks focusing on one strategy in particular—the attachment of tethers to the building blocks at precise locations to create tethered nanoparticle “shape amphiphiles”. We use computer simulation to demonstrate that the resulting anisotropy imparted to nanocrystals or nanocolloids by the tethers can be used to encode simple design rules into the building blocks that ultimately result in a unique self-assembled structure. We present a general classification scheme for tethered nanoparticles wherein the anisotropy of a shape amphiphile is described by a vector comprised of one or more axes each describing a measure of anisotropy.

Tags: Amphiphile, Phase Separation, Self-assembly, Tethered Nanoparticle