Curvature driven phase separation in mixed ligand coated gold nanoparticles

Monolayer-coated gold nanoparticles have been the subject of extensive studies in fields ranging from physics to medicine. The properties of these nanomaterials such as solubility and surface energy are often attributed solely to the chemical functionalities of the ligand head-groups. However, the morphology of these monomolecular layers on gold nanoparticles plays as important of a role as the surface chemistry. Intriguing phase-separation phenomena have been observed for mixed self-assembled monolayers (SAM) of octanethiol (OT) and mercaptopropionic acid (MPA) on the surface of gold nanoparticles. These ordered structures are studied here through scanning tunneling microscope (STM) images, as a function of the gold core diameter, which is a measure of the particle's curvature. The packing of OT homoligand nanoparticles is found to have a head-group spacing of 0.54 nm, which differs from that on flat gold (111) surfaces, 0.5 nm. The OT:MPA heteroligand nanoparticles are observed to phase-separate into ordered ribbon-like domains, with spacings that depend on the nanoparticle diameter. A geometric framework that includes a continuous and crystallographic description is established to best describe the observed behaviors.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Jacob Silva, Paulo H

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Francesco Stellacci.

• Materials Science and Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/35065

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/35065