Superstructures generated from truncated tetrahedral quantum dots
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Superstructures generated from truncated tetrahedral quantum dots. / Nagaoka, Yasutaka; Tan, Rui; Li, Ruipeng; Zhu, Hua; Eggert, Dennis; Wu, Yimin A; Liu, Yuzi; Wang, Zhongwu; Chen, Ou.
In: NATURE, Vol. 561, No. 7723, 09.2018, p. 378-382.Research output: SCORING: Contribution to journal › SCORING: Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Superstructures generated from truncated tetrahedral quantum dots
AU - Nagaoka, Yasutaka
AU - Tan, Rui
AU - Li, Ruipeng
AU - Zhu, Hua
AU - Eggert, Dennis
AU - Wu, Yimin A
AU - Liu, Yuzi
AU - Wang, Zhongwu
AU - Chen, Ou
PY - 2018/9
Y1 - 2018/9
N2 - The assembly of uniform nanocrystal building blocks into well ordered superstructures is a fundamental strategy for the generation of meso- and macroscale metamaterials with emergent nanoscopic functionalities1-10. The packing of spherical nanocrystals, which frequently adopt dense, face-centred-cubic or hexagonal-close-packed arrangements at thermodynamic equilibrium, has been much more widely studied than that of non-spherical, polyhedral nanocrystals, despite the fact that the latter have intriguing anisotropic properties resulting from the shapes of the building blocks11-13. Here we report the packing of truncated tetrahedral quantum dot nanocrystals into three distinct superstructures-one-dimensional chiral tetrahelices, two-dimensional quasicrystal-approximant superlattices and three-dimensional cluster-based body-centred-cubic single supercrystals-by controlling the assembly conditions. Using techniques in real and reciprocal spaces, we successfully characterized the superstructures from their nanocrystal translational orderings down to the atomic-orientation alignments of individual quantum dots. Our packing models showed that formation of the nanocrystal superstructures is dominated by the selective facet-to-facet contact induced by the anisotropic patchiness of the tetrahedra. This study provides information about the packing of non-spherical nanocrystals into complex superstructures, and may enhance the potential of self-assembled nanocrystal metamaterials in practical applications.
AB - The assembly of uniform nanocrystal building blocks into well ordered superstructures is a fundamental strategy for the generation of meso- and macroscale metamaterials with emergent nanoscopic functionalities1-10. The packing of spherical nanocrystals, which frequently adopt dense, face-centred-cubic or hexagonal-close-packed arrangements at thermodynamic equilibrium, has been much more widely studied than that of non-spherical, polyhedral nanocrystals, despite the fact that the latter have intriguing anisotropic properties resulting from the shapes of the building blocks11-13. Here we report the packing of truncated tetrahedral quantum dot nanocrystals into three distinct superstructures-one-dimensional chiral tetrahelices, two-dimensional quasicrystal-approximant superlattices and three-dimensional cluster-based body-centred-cubic single supercrystals-by controlling the assembly conditions. Using techniques in real and reciprocal spaces, we successfully characterized the superstructures from their nanocrystal translational orderings down to the atomic-orientation alignments of individual quantum dots. Our packing models showed that formation of the nanocrystal superstructures is dominated by the selective facet-to-facet contact induced by the anisotropic patchiness of the tetrahedra. This study provides information about the packing of non-spherical nanocrystals into complex superstructures, and may enhance the potential of self-assembled nanocrystal metamaterials in practical applications.
U2 - 10.1038/s41586-018-0512-5
DO - 10.1038/s41586-018-0512-5
M3 - SCORING: Journal article
C2 - 30232427
VL - 561
SP - 378
EP - 382
JO - NATURE
JF - NATURE
SN - 0028-0836
IS - 7723
ER -