Wang Da, van der Wee Ernest B, Zanaga Daniele, Altantzis Thomas, Wu Yaoting, Dasgupta Tonnishtha, Dijkstra Marjolein, Murray Christopher B, Bals Sara, van Blaaderen Alfons
Soft Condensed Matter, Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Electron Microscopy for Materials Science (EMAT), University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.
Nat Commun. 2021 Jun 25;12(1):3980. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-24227-0.
Assembling binary mixtures of nanoparticles into crystals, gives rise to collective properties depending on the crystal structure and the individual properties of both species. However, quantitative 3D real-space analysis of binary colloidal crystals with a thickness of more than 10 layers of particles has rarely been performed. Here we demonstrate that an excess of one species in the binary nanoparticle mixture suppresses the formation of icosahedral order in the self-assembly in droplets, allowing the study of bulk-like binary crystal structures with a spherical morphology also called supraparticles. As example of the approach, we show single-particle level analysis of over 50 layers of Laves phase binary crystals of hard-sphere-like nanoparticles using electron tomography. We observe a crystalline lattice composed of a random mixture of the Laves phases. The number ratio of the binary species in the crystal lattice matches that of a perfect Laves crystal. Our methodology can be applied to study the structure of a broad range of binary crystals, giving insights into the structure formation mechanisms and structure-property relations of nanomaterials.
将纳米颗粒的二元混合物组装成晶体,会产生取决于晶体结构和两种物质各自特性的集体性质。然而,对于厚度超过10层颗粒的二元胶体晶体,很少进行定量的三维实空间分析。在这里,我们证明二元纳米颗粒混合物中一种物质的过量会抑制液滴自组装中二十面体有序结构的形成,从而能够研究具有球形形态的块状二元晶体结构,即超粒子。作为该方法的示例,我们使用电子断层扫描展示了对超过50层类似硬球纳米颗粒的Laves相二元晶体的单粒子水平分析。我们观察到由Laves相的随机混合物组成的晶格。晶格中二元物质的数量比与完美Laves晶体的数量比相匹配。我们的方法可用于研究广泛的二元晶体结构,深入了解纳米材料的结构形成机制和结构-性能关系。