Researchers engineer new pathways for self-assembled nanostructures

One way that scientists control the structure of materials at the nanoscale – where features are a few to several hundred nanometers (nm) – is by using "self-assembly," in which molecules are designed such that they spontaneously come together to form a desired structure or pattern. Self-assembly is a powerful approach to controlling order at the nanoscale and is one way that scientists can design certain properties into a material for specific applications, such as solar energy conversion and storage.

Self-assembly is driven mainly by the system's desire to minimize its energy and achieve equilibrium, but kinetic effects – the natural forces that move atoms and molecules around – can also play a strong role. Typically, these effects are viewed as complications to be overcome, but a collaboration of researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, Yale University, and the University of Warsaw (Poland) has recently shown that these effects can be exploited to engineer a nanostructure in a polymer thin film. Their results are published in the December6,2017 online edition of the journal Nanoscale.