Abstract
We report a new design of polymer-patched gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) with controllable interparticle interactions in terms of their direction and strength. Patchy AuNPs (pAuNPs) are prepared through hydrophobicity-driven surface dewetting under deficient ligand exchange conditions. Using the exposed surface on pAuNPs as seeds, a highly controllable growth of AuNPs is carried out via seed-mediated growth while retaining the size of polymer domains. As guided by ligands, these pAuNPs can self-assemble directionally in two ways along the exposed surface (head-to-head) or the polymer-patched surface of pAuNPs (tail-to-tail). Control of the surface asymmetry/coverage on pAuNPs provides an important tool in balancing interparticle interactions (attraction vs. repulsion) that further tunes assembled nanostructures as clusters and nanochains. The self-assembly pathway plays a key role in determining the interparticle distance and therefore plasmon coupling of pAuNPs. Our results demonstrate a new paradigm in the directional self-assembly of anisotropic building blocks for hierarchical nanomaterials with interesting optical properties.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 7364-7371 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Nanoscale |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue number | 19 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Apr 14 2022 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
J. H. is grateful for the support from the University of Connecticut, the Green Emulsions, Micelles and Surfactants (GEMS) Center, and the National Science Foundation (CBET-2102245). This study was also partially supported by the Institute of Materials Science at the University of Connecticut through the IMMP project. The TEM studies were performed using the facilities in the Bioscience Electron Microscopy Laboratory at the University of Connecticut and the Thermo Fisher Scientific Center for Advanced Microscopy and Materials Analysis (CAMMA).