Strategies toward Hierarchy and Compositional Complexity in Metal Nanocrystal Synthesis

大自然对许多材料所采用的复杂和分层形式感到敬畏;这种复杂的结构产生了使许多材料有用的特性。印第安纳州大学的Skrabalak教授和她的研究小组正在开发将结构复杂性引入现代纳米材料的化学过程。这一目标的出现是因为纳米材料的尺寸、形状和空间排列决定了它们的性质。这项研究正在扩大合成工具包，以实现纳米材料的设计应用于能源转换，催化，等离子体，安全电子，纳米医学等。 这个多学科项目为研究生和本科生（包括代表性不足的群体成员）提供了一系列合成，分析和成像技术的研究机会和培训。此外，研究小组正在与WonderLab的科学教育工作者合作，WonderLab是印第安纳州布卢明顿的一家儿童科学博物馆，提供一个互动展示，通过艺术教授纳米科学。Skrabalak教授还为美国-非洲联合材料研究所（JUAMI）撰写教程。这些教程包括为约60名东非博士生和美国参与者举办的纳米材料讲座。在NSF化学部大分子，超分子和纳米化学计划的支持下，Skrabalak小组正在开发合成工具，以实现具有前所未有的层次结构和成分复杂性的纳米结构。正在处理三个目标。第一个目标是证明顺序籽晶生长作为一个一般的路线走向纳米晶体具有不同的层次结构和手性。第二个目标是通过在形状控制的种子上使用动力学控制的沉积路线来合成具有高折射率敏感性和结构稳定性的新的异质结。第三个目标是阐明金属间籽晶之间的电替代机制，以获得新的三金属组合物和具有金属间域的异质结构。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Nature is awe-inspiring for the intricate and hierarchical forms adopted by many of its materials; Such complex structures give rise to the properties that make many materials useful. Professor Skrabalak and her research group at Indiana University are developing chemical processes that introduce structural complexity to modern nanomaterials. This objective arises because the size, shape, and spatial arrangement of nanoscale materials dictate their properties. This research is expanding the synthetic toolkit in order to achieve nanomaterials by design for applications in energy conversion, catalysis, plasmonics, secured electronics, nanomedicine, and more. This multidisciplinary project provides to graduate and undergraduate students (including members of underrepresented groups) research opportunities and training in a range of synthetic, analytical, and imaging techniques. In addition, the research team is collaborating with science educators at WonderLab - a children's science museum in Bloomington, Indiana - to provide an interactive display that teaches about nanoscience through art. Professor Skrabalak also writes tutorials for the Joint US-Africa Materials Institute (JUAMI). These tutorials include lectures on nanomaterials for ~60 East African PhD students and U.S. participants.With the support from the Macromolecular, Supramolecular and Nanochemistry Program of the NSF Division of Chemistry, the Skrabalak group is developing synthetic tools in order to achieve nanostructures with unprecedented hierarchy and compositional complexity. Three aims are being addressed. The first objective is to demonstrate sequential seeded growth as a general route toward nanocrystals with different hierarchies and chiralities. The second objective is to synthesize new bimetallic heterostructures with high refractive index sensitivity and structural stability through the use of kinetically controlled deposition routes on shape-controlled seeds. The third objective is to elucidate the mechanism of galvanic replacement between intermetallic seeds to access new trimetallic compositions and heterostructures with intermetallic domains. The optical, plasmonic, and catalytic properties of achieved nanostructures are being examined in order to elucidate how complex structure and composition contribute to a material's properties.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.