Quantitative Prediction of Position and Orientation for Platonic Nanoparticles at Liquid/Liquid Interfaces

Because of their intrinsic geometric structure of vertices, edges, and facets, Platonic nanoparticles are promising materials in plasmonics and biosensing. Their position and orientation often play a crucial role in determining the resultant assembly structures at a liquid/liquid interface. Here, we...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Shi, Wenxiong, Zhang, Zhonghan, Li, Shuzhou
Other Authors: School of Materials Science & Engineering
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/88888
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/44785
https://doi.org/10.21979/N9/4OC5RI
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
Description
Summary:Because of their intrinsic geometric structure of vertices, edges, and facets, Platonic nanoparticles are promising materials in plasmonics and biosensing. Their position and orientation often play a crucial role in determining the resultant assembly structures at a liquid/liquid interface. Here, we numerically explored all possible orientations of three Platonic nanoparticles (tetrahedron, cube, and octahedron) and found that a specific orientation (vertex-up, edge-up, or facet-up) is more preferred than random orientations. We also demonstrated their positions and orientations can be quantitatively predicted when the surface tensions dominate their total interaction energies. The line tensions may affect their positions and orientations only when total interaction energies are close to each other for more than one orientation. The molecular dynamics simulation results were in excellent agreement with our theoretical predictions. Our theory will advance our ability toward predicting the final structures of Platonic nanoparticle assemblies at a liquid/liquid interface.