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

带电嵌段共聚物束缚无机纳米粒子的分子模拟自组装

• 批准号: 1505839
• 负责人: Zhihong Nie
• 金额: $ 29.97万
• 依托单位: University of Maryland, College Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-07-01 至 2018-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1505839&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Molecular; mimicking; Self; assembly; Inorganic

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.

来自马里兰大学学院园区的聂志宏教授得到了化学系大分子、超分子和纳米化学(MSN)计划的支持，以加深对纳米颗粒之间相互作用的理解。纳米粒子(其直径小于人类头发直径的1000倍)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，要实现纳米技术的全部潜力，必须能够以特定的二维和三维模式排列纳米粒子，以增强其性能，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所需的二维和三维图案，这将为化学、物理、生物和其他科学领域的新应用打开大门。拟议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，以获得纳米粒子方面的技能和知识，以及开展外联活动，包括指导经济困难的高中生，为成绩优异的7-10年级学生组织为期一天的STEM活动，以及撰写基于网络的信息丰富的文章，以教育公众。这项拟议的工作试图创造一类新的杂化构建块，并将它们作为分子仿制品组装成分级有序的纳米结构。纳米粒子与带电聚合物的功能化用组装指令对纳米粒子进行编码，从而以一种循序渐进的方式引导纳米粒子在多个层次上的自组装。该项目将使用计算和实验方法相结合的方法，以获得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性质的基本理解。组装的纳米结构可在超材料、涂层、传感器、医学和光电子学等领域获得应用。