Gelation of plasmonic metal oxide nanocrystals by polymer-induced depletion attractions.

ABSTRACT: Gelation of colloidal nanocrystals emerged as a strategy to preserve inherent nanoscale properties in multiscale architectures. However, available gelation methods to directly form self-supported nanocrystal networks struggle to reliably control nanoscale optical phenomena such as photoluminescence and localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) across nanocrystal systems due to processing variabilities. Here, we report on an alternative gelation method based on physical internanocrystal interactions: short-range depletion attractions balanced by long-range electrostatic repulsions. The latter are established by removing the native organic ligands that passivate tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) nanocrystals while the former are introduced by mixing with small PEG chains. As we incorporate incre

SUBMITTER: Saez Cabezas CA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6130341 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature