Reversible Microscale Assembly of Nanoparticles Driven by the Phase Transition of a Thermotropic Liquid Crystal.

ABSTRACT: The arrangement of nanoscale building blocks into patterns with microscale periodicity is challenging to achieve via self-assembly processes. Here, we report on the phase-transition-driven collective assembly of gold nanoparticles in a thermotropic liquid crystal. A temperature-induced transition from the isotropic to the nematic phase under anchoring-driven planar alignment leads to the assembly of individual nanometer-sized particles into arrays of micrometer-sized agglomerates, whose size and characteristic spacing can be tuned by varying the cooling rate. Phase field simulations coupling the conserved and nonconserved order parameters exhibit a similar evolution of the morphology as the experimental observations. This fully reversible process offers control over structural order on the

SUBMITTER: Mac Fhionnlaoich N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10278172 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature