Issue 11, 2020

From bulk crystallization of inorganic nanoparticles at the air/water interface: tunable organization and intense structural colors

Abstract

The “flipping method” is a new straightforward way to both adsorb and organize microparticles at a liquid interface, with ultralow amounts of a surfactant and no other external forces than gravity. Here we demonstrate that it allows the adsorption of a variety of inorganic nanoparticles at an air/water interface, in an organized way, which is directly controlled by the surfactant concentration, ranging from amorphous to highly crystalline two-dimensional assemblies. With micromolar amounts of a conventional cationic surfactant (dodecyltrimethylammonium bromide, DTAB), nanoparticles of different compositions (silica, silver, and gold), sizes (down to 100 nm) and shapes (spheres and cubes) adsorb from the bulk and directly organize at the air/water interface, resulting in marked optical properties such as reflectivity or intense structural coloration.

Graphical abstract: From bulk crystallization of inorganic nanoparticles at the air/water interface: tunable organization and intense structural colors

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
30 Dec 2019
Accepted
28 Jan 2020
First published
29 Jan 2020

Nanoscale, 2020,12, 6279-6284

From bulk crystallization of inorganic nanoparticles at the air/water interface: tunable organization and intense structural colors

J. Vialetto, S. Rudiuk, M. Morel and D. Baigl, Nanoscale, 2020, 12, 6279 DOI: 10.1039/C9NR10965J

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