Thermomechanical Response of Self-Assembled Nanoparticle Membranes
- Department of Physics, University of Chicago, 5720 S. Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637, United States; James Franck Institute, University of Chicago, 929 E. 57th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60637 United States
- Center for Nanoscale Materials, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Avenue, Argonne, Illinois 60439, United States
- Department of Physics, Marshall University, One John Marshall Drive, Huntington, West Virginia 25755, United States
Monolayers composed of colloidal nanoparticles, with a thickness of less than 10 nm, have remarkable mechanical moduli and can suspend over micrometer-sized holes to form free-standing membranes. In this paper, we discuss experiment's and coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations characterizing the thermomechanical properties of these self-assembled nanoparticle membranes. These membranes remain strong and resilient up to temperatures much higher than previous simulation predictions and exhibit an unexpected hysteretic behavior during the first heating cooling cycle. We show this hysteretic behavior can be explained by an asymmetric ligand configuration from the self assembly process and can be controlled by changing the ligand coverage or cross-linking the ligand molecules. Finally, we show the screening effect of water molecules on the ligand interactions can strongly affect the moduli and thermomechanical behavior.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Laboratory (ANL)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE Office of Science - Office of Basic Energy Sciences - Scientific User Facilities Division
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-06CH11357
- OSTI ID:
- 1416979
- Journal Information:
- ACS Nano, Journal Name: ACS Nano Journal Issue: 8 Vol. 11; ISSN 1936-0851
- Publisher:
- American Chemical Society (ACS)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Self-assembly of iron oxide nanoparticles studied by time-resolved grazing-incidence small-angle x-ray scattering
Self-assembly of nanoparticles into biomimetic capsid-like nanoshells