Facile self-assembly of colloidal diamond from tetrahedral patchy particles via ring selection.

ABSTRACT: Diamond-structured crystals, particularly those with cubic symmetry, have long been attractive targets for the programmed self-assembly of colloidal particles, due to their applications as photonic crystals that can control the flow of visible light. While spherical particles decorated with four patches in a tetrahedral arrangement-tetrahedral patchy particles-should be an ideal building block for this endeavor, their self-assembly into colloidal diamond has proved elusive. The kinetics of self-assembly pose a major challenge, with competition from an amorphous glassy phase, as well as clathrate crystals, leaving a narrow widow of patch widths where tetrahedral patchy particles can self-assemble into diamond crystals. Here we demonstrate that a two-component system of tetrahedral patchy pa

SUBMITTER: Neophytou A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8640719 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature