Diamond Family of Nanoparticle Superlattices

Abstract

Diamond lattices formed by atomic or colloidal elements exhibit remarkable functional properties. However, building such structures via self-assembly has proven to be challenging because of the low packing fraction, sensitivity to bond orientation, and local heterogeneity. We report a strategy for creating a diamond superlattice of nano-objects via self-assembly and demonstrate its experimental realization by assembling two variant diamond lattices, one with and one without atomic analogs. Our approach relies on the association between anisotropic particles with well-defined tetravalent binding topology and isotropic particles. The constrained packing of triangular binding footprints of truncated tetrahedra on a sphere defines a unique three-dimensional lattice. Hence, the diamond self-assembly problem is solved via its mapping onto two-dimensional triangular packing on the surface of isotropic spherical particles.

Department(s)

Chemistry

Keywords and Phrases

diamond; double stranded DNA; nanoparticle, anisotropy; chemical binding; diamond; innovation; isotropy; lattice dynamics; nanoparticle, Article; crystal structure; hybridization; nanoencapsulation; particle size; priority journal; thermal conductivity; transmission electron microscopy; X ray diffraction

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

0036-8075; 1095-9203

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2016 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Feb 2016

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