skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Micellar Mimicry of Intermetallic C14 and C15 Laves Phases by Aqueous Lyotropic Self-Assembly

Journal Article · · ACS Nano
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2]
  1. Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN (United States). Dept. of Chemistry
  2. Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN (United States). Dept. of Chemistry, and Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science

Concentration-dependent supramolecular self-assembly of amphiphilic molecules in water furnishes a variety of nanostructured lyotropic liquid crystals (LLCs), which typically display high symmetry bicontinuous network and discontinuous micellar morphologies. Aqueous dispersions of soft spherical micelles derived from small molecule amphiphile hydration typically pack into exemplary body-centered cubic and closest-packed LLCs. However, investigations of hydrated mixtures of the ionic surfactant tetramethylammonium decanoate loaded with 40 wt % n-decane (TMADec-40) revealed the formation of a high symmetry bicontinuous double diamond LLC, as well as cubic C15 and hexagonal C14 Laves LLC phases that mirror the MgCu2 and MgZn2 intermetallic structure types, respectively. Detailed small-angle X-ray scattering analyses demonstrate that the complex C15 and C14 LLCs exhibit large unit cells, in which 12 or more ~3–4 nm diameter micelles of multiple discrete sizes arrange into tetrahedral close packing arrangements with exceptional long-range translational order. The symmetry breaking that drives self-assembly into these low-symmetry LLC phases is rationalized in terms of a frustrated balance between maximizing counterion-mediated micellar cohesion within the ensemble of oil-swollen particles, while simultaneously optimizing local spherical particle symmetry to minimize molecular-level variations in surfactant solvation.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Advanced Photon Source (APS)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC); National Science Foundation (NSF)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-06CH11357
OSTI ID:
1435815
Journal Information:
ACS Nano, Vol. 12, Issue 4; ISSN 1936-0851
Publisher:
American Chemical Society (ACS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
ENGLISH
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 50 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (49)

50th Anniversary Perspective : Block Polymers—Pure Potential journal December 2016
Multiblock Polymers: Panacea or Pandora's Box? journal April 2012
Development of Structural Complexity by Liquid-Crystal Self-assembly journal August 2013
Selective assemblies of giant tetrahedra via precisely controlled positional interactions journal April 2015
Geometry induced sequence of nanoscale Frank–Kasper and quasicrystal mesophases in giant surfactants journal November 2016
Functional Liquid-Crystalline Assemblies: Self-Organized Soft Materials journal January 2006
Structural Color for Additive Manufacturing: 3D-Printed Photonic Crystals from Block Copolymers journal February 2017
Photonic Polyethylene from Self-Assembled Mesophases of Polydisperse Olefin Block Copolymers journal June 2009
Self-assembly route for photonic crystals with a bandgap in the visible region journal February 2007
Ordered mesoporous molecular sieves synthesized by a liquid-crystal template mechanism journal October 1992
Ordered porous materials for emerging applications journal June 2002
Cuboplexes: Topologically Active siRNA Delivery journal September 2015
Biotinylated Cubosomes: A Versatile Tool for Active Targeting and Codelivery of Paclitaxel and a Fluorescein-Based Lipid Dye journal November 2015
A unified picture of the crystal structures of metals journal April 1995
The crystal structure of β-tantalum journal May 1973
Complex alloy structures regarded as sphere packings. I. Definitions and basic principles journal March 1958
Complex alloy structures regarded as sphere packings. II. Analysis and classification of representative structures journal July 1959
Frank–Kasper, quasicrystalline and related phases in liquid crystals journal January 2005
The packing of soft materials: Molecular asymmetry, geometric frustration and optimal lattices in block copolymer melts journal October 2006
Ordered micellar and inverse micellar lyotropic phases journal July 2010
Cubic phases of lipid-containing systems journal May 1992
Lipid polymorphism: a correction. The structure of the cubic phase of extinction symbol Fd--consists of two types of disjointed reverse micelles embedded in a three-dimensional hydrocarbon matrix journal January 1992
An Fd 3 m Lyotropic Cubic Phase in a Binary Glycolipid/Water System journal January 1996
How the chain configuration governs the packing of inverted micelles in the cubic Fd3m-phase journal January 2013
Low-symmetry sphere packings of simple surfactant micelles induced by ionic sphericity journal April 2017
Elucidating the Structure of the Pm $\bar 3$ n Cubic Phase of Supramolecular Dendrimers through the Modification of their Aliphatic to Aromatic Volume Ratio journal September 2009
Giant Supramolecular Liquid Crystal Lattice journal February 2003
Supramolecular dendritic liquid quasicrystals journal March 2004
Cornucopia of Nanoscale Ordered Phases in Sphere-Forming Tetrablock Terpolymers journal April 2016
Dodecagonal quasicrystalline order in a diblock copolymer melt journal April 2016
Discovery of a Frank-Kasper   Phase in Sphere-Forming Block Copolymer Melts journal October 2010
Thermal processing of diblock copolymer melts mimics metallurgy journal May 2017
Conformational Asymmetry and Quasicrystal Approximants in Linear Diblock Copolymers journal May 2017
Sphericity and symmetry breaking in the formation of Frank–Kasper phases from one component materials journal November 2014
Hexagonal Close Packing of Nonionic Surfactant Micelles in Water journal May 2007
A 3-D Hexagonal Inverse Micellar Lyotropic Phase journal February 2009
Hexagonal closest-packed spheres liquid crystalline phases stabilised by strongly hydrated counterions journal January 2014
Phase Behavior of Lyotropic Liquid Crystals in Linear Alkylbenzene Sulphonate (LAS) Systems in the Presence of Dilute and Concentrated Electrolyte journal December 2011
Linker Length-Dependent Control of Gemini Surfactant Aqueous Lyotropic Gyroid Phase Stability journal March 2015
Evidence for a C14 Frank–Kasper Phase in One-Size Gold Nanoparticle Superlattices journal July 2015
Crystallographic Computing System JANA2006: General features journal January 2014
SUPERFLIP – a computer program for the solution of crystal structures by charge flipping in arbitrary dimensions journal July 2007
Evidence for Spontaneous Formation of Three-Dimensionally Periodic Cellular Structures in a Water/Oil/Surfactant/Alcohol System journal July 2000
Structure and stability of Laves phases. Part I. Critical assessment of factors controlling Laves phase stability journal July 2004
Competition brings out the best: modelling the frustration between curvature energy and chain stretching energy of lyotropic liquid crystals in bicontinuous cubic phases journal June 2017
Monoolein: a magic lipid? journal January 2011
Electrostatic Interactions Govern “Odd/Even” Effects in Water-Induced Gemini Surfactant Self-Assembly journal January 2017
Should All Crystals Be bcc? Landau Theory of Solidification and Crystal Nucleation journal September 1978
Kelvin's conjecture on minimal froths and the counter-example of Weaire and Phelan journal May 1994

Cited By (9)

Complex Crystals from Size-Disperse Spheres journal March 2019
Role of Chain Length in the Formation of Frank-Kasper Phases in Diblock Copolymers journal November 2018
Encoding biological recognition in a bicomponent cell-membrane mimic text January 2019
Stable Frank–Kasper phases of self-assembled, soft matter spheres journal September 2018
Identification of a Frank–Kasper Z phase from shape amphiphile self-assembly journal September 2019
Encoding biological recognition in a bicomponent cell-membrane mimic journal February 2019
Stable Frank-Kasper phases of self-assembled, soft matter spheres text January 2018
Complex Crystals from Size-disperse Spheres text January 2018
Review on Generalized Dynamics of Soft-Matter Quasicrystals and Its Applications preprint January 2019

Figures / Tables (6)