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Title: Tunable Assembly of Gold Nanorods in Polymer Solutions To Generate Controlled Nanostructured Materials

Journal Article · · ACS Applied Nano Materials

In this study, gold nanorods grafted with short chain polymers are assembled into controlled open structures using polymer-induced depletion interactions and structurally characterized using small angle x-ray scattering. When the nanorod diameter is smaller than the radius of gyration of the depletant polymer, the depletion interaction depends solely on the correlation length of the polymer solution and not directly on the polymer molecular weight. As the polymer concentration increases, the stronger depletion interactions increasingly compress the grafted chains and push the gold nanorods closer together. By contrast, other structural characteristics such as the number of nearest neighbors and fractal dimension exhibit a non-monotonic dependence on polymer concentration. These parameters are maximal at intermediate concentrations, which are attributed to a crossover from reaction-limited to diffusion-limited aggregation. Finally, the control over structural properties of anisotropic nanoscale building blocks demonstrated here will be beneficial to designing and producing materials in situ with specific direction-dependent nanoscale properties and provides a crucial route for advances in additive manufacturing.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC); Welch Foundation
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-06CH11357
OSTI ID:
1427771
Journal Information:
ACS Applied Nano Materials, Vol. 1, Issue 2; ISSN 2574-0970
Publisher:
American Chemical Society (ACS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 15 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (3)

Bundle formation of supramolecular fibers of amphiphilic diarylethene by depletion force journal January 2018
Phase-dependent shear-induced order of nanorods in isotropic and nematic wormlike micelle solutions journal January 2019
Macromolecular crowding for materials-directed controlled self-assembly journal January 2018