Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.
GoGreen Membership

Site Tools

  • AAAS
  • Subscribe
  • Feedback

Site Search

Search Advanced

Science 13 April 2007:
Vol. 316. no. 5822, pp. 261 - 264
DOI: 10.1126/science.1139131
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Reports

Plastic and Moldable Metals by Self-Assembly of Sticky Nanoparticle Aggregates

Rafal Klajn,1* Kyle J. M. Bishop,1* Marcin Fialkowski,1 Maciej Paszewski,1 Christopher J. Campbell,1 Timothy P. Gray,2 Bartosz A. Grzybowski1,2{dagger}

Deformable, spherical aggregates of metal nanoparticles connected by long-chain dithiol ligands self-assemble into nanostructured materials of macroscopic dimensions. These materials are plastic and moldable against arbitrarily shaped masters and can be thermally hardened into polycrystalline metal structures of controllable porosity. In addition, in both plastic and hardened states, the assemblies are electrically conductive and exhibit Ohmic characteristics down to ~20 volts per meter. The self-assembly method leading to such materials is applicable both to pure metals and to bimetallic structures of various elemental compositions.

1 Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.
2 Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.

* These authors contributed equally to this work.

{dagger} To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: grzybor{at}northwestern.edu

Read the Full Text

ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)