Type
ArticleKAUST Grant Number
KUK-C1-013-04Date
2012-02-06Online Publication Date
2012-02-06Print Publication Date
2012-02-01Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/598881
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The structure of the tilted phase of monolayer-protected nanoparticles is investigated by means of a simple Ginzburg-Landau model. The theory contains two dimensionless parameters representing the preferential tilt angle and the ratio ε between the energy cost due to spatial variations in the tilt of the coating molecules and that of the van der Waals interactions which favors the preferential tilt. We analyze the model for both spherical and octahedral particles. On spherical particles, we find a transition from a tilted phase, at small ε, to a phase where the molecules spontaneously align along the surface normal and tilt disappears. Octahedral particles have an additional phase at small ε characterized by the presence of six topological defects. These defective configurations provide preferred sites for the chemical functionalization of monolayer-protected nanoparticles via place-exchange reactions and their consequent linking to form molecules and bulk materials. Copyright © EPLA, 2012.Citation
Giomi, L., Bowick, M. J., Ma, X., & Majumdar, A. (2012). Molecular tilt on monolayer-protected nanoparticles. EPL (Europhysics Letters), 97(3), 36005. doi:10.1209/0295-5075/97/36005Sponsors
LG and MJB would like to thank F. STELLACCI for the insightful conversations that inspired this work. MJB thanks T. ASEFA for enlightening discussions of the chemistry of SAMs. We gratefully acknowledge support from the Wyss Institute (LG), the Harvard Kavli Institue for Bionano Science & Technology (LG), the NSF Harvard MRSEC (LG). The work of MJB and XM was supported by the National Science Foundation grant DMR-0808812. AM is supported by Award No. KUK-C1-013-04, made by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), to the Oxford Centre for Collaborative Applied Mathematics and an EPSRC Career Acceleration Fellowship EP/J001686/1.Publisher
IOP PublishingJournal
EPL (Europhysics Letters)ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1209/0295-5075/97/36005