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Hierarchical self-assembly of suspended branched colloidal nanocrystals into superlattice structures

Nature Materials volume 10, pages 872–876 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

Self-assembly of molecular units into complex and functional superstructures is ubiquitous in biology. The number of superstructures realized by self-assembly of man-made nanoscale units is also growing. However, assemblies of colloidal inorganic nanocrystals1,2,3 are still at an elementary level, not only because of the simplicity of the shape of the nanocrystal building blocks and their interactions, but also because of the poor control over these parameters in the fabrication of more elaborate nanocrystals. Here, we show how monodisperse colloidal octapod-shaped nanocrystals self-assemble, in a suitable solution environment, on two sequential levels. First, linear chains of interlocked octapods are formed, and subsequently the chains spontaneously self-assemble into three-dimensional superstructures. Remarkably, all the instructions for the hierarchical self-assembly are encoded in the octapod shape. The mechanical strength of these superstructures is improved by welding the constituent nanocrystals together.

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Figure 1: Formation of octapod chains in toluene.
Figure 2: Assembly of chains into 3D superstructures.
Figure 3: Model of hierarchical assembly of octapods into 3D structures.
Figure 4: Welding of the 3D structures.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge financial support from the European Union through the FP7 starting ERC Grant NANO-ARCH (Contract Number 240111). M.D. acknowledges financial support by a ‘Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek’ NWO Vici Grant, and R.v.R. by the Utrecht University High Potential Programme.

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Author notes

  1. Karol Miszta, Joost de Graaf and Giovanni Bertoni: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), Via Morego 30, 16163 Genova, Italy

    Karol Miszta, Giovanni Bertoni, Dirk Dorfs, Rosaria Brescia, Sergio Marras, Luca Ceseracciu, Roberto Cingolani & Liberato Manna

  2. Soft Condensed Matter, Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science, Utrecht University, Princetonplein 5, 3584 CC, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Joost de Graaf & Marjolein Dijkstra

  3. Institute for Theoretical Physics, Utrecht University, Leuvenlaan 4, 3584 CE, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    René van Roij

Authors
  1. Karol Miszta
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Contributions

K.M. performed the synthesis of the octapods and optimized the procedures for assembling. D.D. performed DLS measurements and cation exchanged reactions. G.B. performed cryo-STEM experiments, STEM tomographic reconstruction of the chain, and discussed modelling. S.M. imaged all samples with SEM-EDS and had the idea of plasma treatment. R.B. performed EFTEM on welded chains and STEM tomographic acquisitions on single octapods. J.d.G., M.D. and R.v.R. performed all the simulations and discussed modelling. L.C. performed the indentation measurements. L.M. and R.C. initiated the work, had the idea of hierarchical assembling, and discussed modelling.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Karol Miszta, Joost de Graaf, Giovanni Bertoni or Liberato Manna.

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Miszta, K., de Graaf, J., Bertoni, G. et al. Hierarchical self-assembly of suspended branched colloidal nanocrystals into superlattice structures. Nature Mater 10, 872–876 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3121

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