Assembly of metals and nanoparticles into novel nanocomposite superstructures

作者：Xu Jiaquan; Chen Lianyi; Choi Hongseok; Konish Hiromi; Li Xiaochun^*

来源：Scientific Reports, 2013, 3(1): 1730.

DOI：10.1038/srep01730

Controlled assembly of nanoscale objects into superstructures is of tremendous interests. Many approaches have been developed to fabricate organic-nanoparticle superstructures. However, effective fabrication of inorganic-nanoparticle superstructures (such as nanoparticles linked by metals) remains a difficult challenge. Here we show a novel, general method to assemble metals and nanoparticles rationally into nanocomposite superstructures. Novel metal-nanoparticle superstructures are achieved by self-assembly of liquid metals and nanoparticles in immiscible liquids driven by reduction of free energy. Superstructures with various architectures, such as metal-core/nanoparticle-shell, nanocomposite-core/nanoparticle-shell, network of metal-linked core/shell nanostructures, and network of metal-linked nanoparticles, were successfully fabricated by simply tuning the volume ratio between nanoparticles and liquid metals. Our approach provides a simple, general way for fabrication of numerous metal-nanoparticle superstructures and enables a rational design of these novel superstructures with desired architectures for exciting applications.

• 出版日期2013-4-25