Journal
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
Volume 11, Issue 1, Pages -Publisher
NATURE RESEARCH
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19461-x
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- PhD Network: Novel nanoparticles: from synthesis to biological applications at the University of Tubingen
- Carl Zeiss Stiftung (Forschungsstrukturkonzept Interdisziplinares nanoBCP-Lab)
- European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program [802822]
- Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
- DFG [INST 37/829-1 FUGG]
- Projekt DEAL
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The collective properties of self-assembled nanoparticles with long-range order bear immense potential for customized electronic materials by design. However, to mitigate the shortcoming of the finite-size distribution of nanoparticles and thus, the inherent energetic disorder within assemblies, atomically precise nanoclusters are the most promising building blocks. We report an easy and broadly applicable method for the controlled self-assembly of atomically precise Au-32((Bu3P)-Bu-n)(12)Cl-8 nanoclusters into micro-crystals. This enables the determination of emergent optoelectronic properties which resulted from long-range order in such assemblies. Compared to the same nanoclusters in glassy, polycrystalline ensembles, we find a 100-fold increase in the electric conductivity and charge carrier mobility as well as additional optical transitions. We show that these effects are due to a vanishing energetic disorder and a drastically reduced activation energy to charge transport in the highly ordered assemblies. This first correlation of structure and electronic properties by comparing glassy and crystalline self-assembled superstructures of atomically precise gold nanoclusters paves the way towards functional materials with novel collective optoelectronic properties.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available