Papers Published

1. Fan, H. Y. and Yang, K. and Boye, D. M. and Sigmon, T. and Malloy, K. J. and Xu, H. F. and Lopez, G. P. and Brinker, C. J., Self-assembly of ordered, robust, three-dimensional gold nanocrystal/silica arrays, SCIENCE, vol. 304 no. 5670 (April, 2004), pp. 567--571 .
   (last updated on 2010/02/08)

   Abstract:
   We report the synthesis of a new nanocrystal (NC) mesophase through self-assembly of water-soluble NC micelles with soluble silica. The mesophase comprises gold nanocrystals arranged within a silica matrix in a face-centered cubic lattice with cell dimensions that are adjustable through control of the nanocrystal diameter and/or the alkane chain lengths of the primary alkanethiol stabilizing ligands or the surrounding secondary surfactants. Under kinetically controlled silica polymerization conditions, evaporation drives self-assembly of NC micelles into ordered NC/silica thin-film mesophases during spin coating. The intermediate NC micelles are water soluble and of interest for biolabeling. Initial experiments on a metal-insulator-metal capacitor fabricated with an ordered three-dimensional gold nanocrystal/silica array as the ``insulator'' demonstrated collective Coulomb blockade behavior below 100 kelvin and established the current-voltage scaling relationship for a well-defined three-dimensional array of Coulomb islands.