Orientational ordering of passivating ligands on CdS nanorods in solution generates strong rod-rod interactions.
basic_science · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 24295449.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1021/nl403067p.
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Abstract
We present the first nearly atomistic molecular dynamics study of nanorod-nanorod association in explicit solvent, showing that inter-rod forces can be dominated by microscopic factors absent in common continuum descriptions. Specifically, we find that alkane ligands on faceted CdS nanorods in n-hexane undergo a temperature-dependent order-disorder transition akin to that of self-assembled monolayers on macroscopic substrates. This collective ligand alignment organizes nearby solvent molecules, strongly influencing the statistics of rod-rod separation. The strong temperature dependence of this mechanism could be exploited in the laboratory to manipulate and optimize the assembly of ordered structures.