Molecular-mimicking Self-assembly of Inorganic Nanoparticles Tethered with Charged Block Copolymers

来自马里兰大学帕克分校的聂志宏教授得到了化学学部大分子、超分子和纳米化学（MSN）项目的支持，对纳米颗粒之间的相互作用进行了更深入的了解。纳米粒子（直径小于人类头发丝的千分之一）具有与相应的块状材料在重要和有用的方面不同的特性。然而，为了充分发挥纳米技术的潜力，必须能够将纳米粒子排列成特定的二维和三维模式，从而提高它们的性能，甚至提供新的性能。通过控制这种相互作用，很有可能使纳米颗粒自组织成理想的二维和三维模式，这将为化学、物理、生物和其他科学的新应用打开大门。拟议的研究计划的更广泛影响包括培训学生，特别是来自代表性不足的群体的学生，以获得纳米颗粒的技能和知识，以及外展活动，包括指导经济上处于不利地位的高中生，为学术上先进的7-10年级学生组织为期一天的STEM活动，以及为教育公众撰写信息丰富的网络文章。这项提议的工作旨在创造一类新的混合构建块，并将它们作为分子模拟物组装成层次有序的纳米结构。带电荷聚合物的功能化纳米粒子用组装指令编码纳米粒子，从而指导纳米粒子在多个层次上以阶梯方式进行自组装。该项目将采用计算和实验相结合的方法，对如何编程纳米颗粒之间的相互作用和控制组装的纳米颗粒的特性有一个基本的了解。组装的纳米结构可以在超材料、涂料、传感器、医学和光电子等领域找到应用。

Professor Zhihong Nie from the University of Maryland-College Park is being supported by the Macromolecular, Supramolecular and Nanochemistry (MSN) Program in the Chemistry Division to develop a deeper understanding of the interactions between nanoparticles. Nanoparticles (with diameters less than 1000th of that of a human hair) have properties that differ in important and useful ways from those of the corresponding bulk material. However, to realize the full potential of nanotechnology, it is essential to be able to arrange nanoparticles in specific two- and three-dimensional patterns that can enhance their properties or even provide new properties. By controlling such interactions, it may well be possible to cause nanoparticles to self-organize into desired two- and three-dimensional patterns that would open the door to new applications in chemistry, physics, biology, and other sciences. The broader impacts of the proposed research program involve training students particularly from under-represented groups to acquire skills and knowledge in nanoparticles, as well as outreach activities including mentoring economically disadvantaged high school students, organizing one-day STEM event for academically advanced 7-10th grade students, and writing informative web-based articles for educating the general public. This proposed work seeks to create a new class of hybrid building blocks and to assemble them as molecular mimics into hierarchically-ordered nanostructures. The functionalization of nanoparticles with charged polymers encodes the nanoparticles with assembly instructions, thus guiding the self-assembly of nanoparticles at multiple hierarchical levels in a step-wise fashion. This project will use a combination of computational and experimental methods to gain a fundamental understanding of how to program the interactions between nanoparticles and to control the properties of assembled nanoparticles. The assembled nanostructures could find applications in such areas as metamaterials, coatings, sensors, medicine, and optoelectronics.