Facetted patchy particles through entropy-driven patterning of mixed ligand SAMS

Aaron Santos, Jaime Andres Millan, Sharon C. Glotzer
2012 Nanoscale  
We present a microscopic theory that describes the ordering of two distinct ligands on the surface of a faceted nanoparticle. The theory predicts that when one type of ligand is significantly bulkier than all others, the larger ligands preferentially align themselves along the edges and vertices of the nanoparticle. Monte Carlo simulations confirm these predictions. We show that the intrinsic conformational entropy of the ligands stabilizes this novel edge-aligned phase.
doi:10.1039/c2nr11737a pmid:22434417 fatcat:5bo67bkwubc3hbjjri5ijtgeqi