Strategies toward Hierarchy and Compositional Complexity in Metal Nanocrystal Synthesis

大自然令人敬畏，因为它的许多材料采用了复杂和分级的形式；这种复杂的结构产生了使许多材料有用的特性。印第安纳大学的斯克拉巴拉克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大小、形状和空间排列决定了它们的性质。这项研究正在扩展合成工具包，以便通过设计在能量转换、催化、等离子体、安全电子学、纳米医学等方面的应用来实现纳米材料。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、分析和成像技术方面的研究机会和培训。此外，研究小组正在与印第安纳州布鲁明顿的儿童科学博物馆WonderLab的科学教育工作者合作，提供一个互动展示，通过艺术教授纳米科学。斯克拉巴拉克教授还为美非联合材料研究所(JUAMI)撰写教程。这些教程包括为大约60名东非博士生和美国参与者提供的纳米材料讲座。在美国国家科学基金会化学部高分子、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化和成分复杂性的纳米结构。目前正在实现三个目标。第一个目标是证明连续种子生长是获得具有不同层次和手性的纳米晶体的一般途径。第二个目标是通过在形状可控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灵敏度和结构稳定性的新的双金属异质结构。第三个目标是阐明金属间晶种之间的电偶置换机制，以获得新的三金属成分和具有金属间化合物区域的异质结构。目前正在研究已实现的纳米结构的光学、等离子体和催化性质，以阐明复杂的结构和组成如何对材料的性质做出贡献。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.