TY  - JOUR
AU  - Xu, Xufeng
AU  - Wu, Baohu
AU  - Cölfen, Helmut
AU  - de With, Gijsbertus
TI  - Assembly Control at a Low Péclet Number in Ultracentrifugation for Uniformly Sized Nanoparticles
JO  - The journal of physical chemistry  / C
VL  - 125
IS  - 16
SN  - 1932-7455
CY  - Washington, DC
PB  - Soc.
M1  - FZJ-2021-03878
SP  - 8752 - 8758
PY  - 2021
AB  - The intrinsic high diffusion rate of colloids at low Péclet number results in an extremely fast crystallization process and instant formation of colloidal crystals, even at an ultracentrifugal field of extremely high intensity. By introducing a small number of clusters in sedimention, it should be possible to slow down the crystallization process, thus making the assembly order tunable in preparative ultracentrifugation experiments. Here, we used sodium dodecyl sulfate-stabilized polystyrene nanoparticles (with a size dispersity of 1.07) dispersed in a solution of high ionic strength. Sedimentation and assembly of these nanoparticles were done using preparative ultracentrifugation at various angular velocities. The sedimentation process was also analyzed in situ by analytical ultracentrifugation in real time. By creating as low as 3% of clusters into these nearly uniformly sized polystyrene nanoparticle dispersions during the sedimentation process, the superstructure order becomes easily tunable between glassy and crystalline. Theoretical calculations complemented the experiments to explain the mechanism of cluster formation in sedimentation. This work provides a novel methodology to produce superstructures with a tunable packing order for colloids at low Péclet number.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
C6  - 34093940
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000647271300030
DO  - DOI:10.1021/acs.jpcc.1c00143
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/901870
ER  -