Spontaneous Superlattice Formation in Nanorods Through Partial Cation Exchange

doi:10.1126/science.1142593

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Materials Science

Science 20 July 2007:
Vol. 317. no. 5836, pp. 355 - 358
DOI: 10.1126/science.1142593

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Spontaneous Superlattice Formation in Nanorods Through Partial Cation Exchange

Richard D. Robinson,¹ Bryce Sadtler,²^* Denis O. Demchenko,³^* Can K. Erdonmez,² Lin-Wang Wang,³ A. Paul Alivisatos¹^,2

Lattice-mismatch strains are widely known to control nanoscalepattern formation in heteroepitaxy, but such effects have notbeen exploited in colloidal nanocrystal growth. We demonstratea colloidal route to synthesizing CdS-Ag₂S nanorod superlatticesthrough partial cation exchange. Strain induces the spontaneousformation of periodic structures. Ab initio calculations ofthe interfacial energy and modeling of strain energies showthat these forces drive the self-organization of the superlattices.The nanorod superlattices exhibit high stability against ripeningand phase mixing. These materials are tunable near-infraredemitters with potential applications as nanometer-scale optoelectronicdevices.

¹ Materials Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
² Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
³ Computational Research Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.

^* These authors contributed equally to this work.

To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: alivis{at}berkeley.edu