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

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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.