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Self-assembly of functional nanoscale materials

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Abstract

Self-assembly techniques are powerful and efficient methods for the synthesis of nanoscale materials. Using these techniques and their combination with other bottom-up fabrication processes, materials with hierarchical features can be produced with form and function in multiple length scales. We synthesize multifunctional nanoparticles through surfactant-assisted noncovalent interactions using nanoparticle building blocks. Self-assembly of these nano-building blocks results in functional materials that exhibit well-defined morphologies and hierarchical architectures for a wide range of applications. Hierarchically structured porphyrin nanocrystals can be synthesized through surfactant micelle-confined noncovalent interactions of photoactive porphyrins. We can amplify the intrinsic advantages of individual photoactive porphyrins by engineering them into well-defined active nanostructures. Through kinetic control, these nanocrystals exhibit precisely defined size, shape, and spatial arrangement of the individual porphyrins, which facilitates intermolecular mass and energy transfer. These self-assembly techniques provide remarkable flexibility to design morphologies and architectures that produce desirable properties for practical applications including photocatalysis, photodegradation, and phototherapy.

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Acknowledgment

I would like to thank the interdisciplinary team of Sandians, students, postdocs, and others who have collaborated with me to achieve scientific success. I appreciate the support from the Center for Integrated Nanotechnology, a US Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Basic Energy Sciences user facility, DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering, Sandia’s LDRD program, and the National Science Foundation is gratefully acknowledged. This article describes objective technical results and analysis. Any subjective views or opinions that might be expressed in the presentation do not necessarily represent the views of the US Department of Energy or the United States Government. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International, Inc., for the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration under Contract No. DE-NA0003525.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for Special Functional Materials of the Ministry of Education, Henan University, China

    Feng Bai

  2. Sandia National Laboratories, USA

    Kaifu Bian

  3. Navitas Systems LLC, USA

    Binsong Li

  4. The University of New Mexico, and Sandia National Laboratories, USA

    Casey Karler

  5. The University of New Mexico, and Sandia National Laboratories, USA

    Ashley Bowman

  6. Sandia National Laboratories, The University of New Mexico, USA

    Hongyou Fan

Authors
  1. Feng Bai
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  2. Kaifu Bian
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  3. Binsong Li
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  4. Casey Karler
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  5. Ashley Bowman
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  6. Hongyou Fan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Feng Bai.

Additional information

This article is based on the MRS Mid-Career Researcher Award presentation given by Hongyou Fan, Sandia National Laboratories and The University of New Mexico, at the 2019 MRS Spring Meeting in Phoenix, Ariz.

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Bai, F., Bian, K., Li, B. et al. Self-assembly of functional nanoscale materials. MRS Bulletin 45, 135–141 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1557/mrs.2020.21

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