Gold clay from self-assembly of 2D microscale nanosheets.

ABSTRACT: Nature has always demonstrated incredible ability to create amazing materials such as soft clay which are built from nanoplatelet packing structures. It is challenging to produce artificial clays owing to the difficulty in obtaining large volume fractions of nanoplatelets and the lack of structural control in layer-by-layer packing. Here, single-crystalline Au nanosheets are synthesized by controlled growth in the bilayer membranes of succinic acid surfactants. Then, a self-assembly strategy is used to make {111}-oriented gold nanostructures at the liquid-liquid interface. The stiffness of the nanosheet assemblies are six orders of magnitude softer than bulk gold. The Au nanosheet aggregates show high plasticity and deformable into macroscale free-standing metallic architectures. They show

SUBMITTER: Yue Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6989663 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature