Self-assembly is a powerful technology to construct nanomaterials with helical structures. However, using metal nanoclusters (NCs) as the building blocks for the construction of helical architectures is still rarely reported. In this paper, Au NC assembled helical ribbons (Au NCHRs) are successfully constructed by using Au NCs as the building blocks. Effects of heating mode, solvent polarity and ligand length on the self-assembly process of Au NCs are discussed. The results indicate that the lengths of overlapped and nonoverlapped ligands between adjacent Au NCs play the dominated role on adjusting the morphologies of the resulting assemblies. Ligands with appropriate overlap can provide sufficient flexibility for the helical assembly of Au NCs without losing the stability. If the length of the overlapped parts is too long, the assemblies are usually rigid without the helical structure. Instead, the overlength of nonoverlapped ligands will boost the flexibility but damage the structural stability of the assemblies. Since everything in the world is assembled by atoms and molecules, recognizing the self-assembly mechanism of NCs may promote our understanding on the bountiful complexity of life and nature.
Siyu Guo,Hu Liu,Haiyang He,Wei Wang,Lin Jiang,Xuhui Xiong,Li Wang
Long-chain zwitterionic ligands have been demonstrated to greatly improve the chemical durability of colloidal CsPbBr3 nanocrystals (NCs) by the chelate effect. However, Br sources are toxic, and the reaction is so dynamic that it is hard to control the size of the crystal. We propose an eco-friendly strategy to improve the chemical durability of colloidal CsPbBr3 NCs. Nontoxic, inexpensive, and directly available benzoyl bromine was used as the Br source, and tri-n-octylphosphine oxide was used as the adjuvant to control the reaction kinetics. Uniform, monodispersed NCs with a size of ∼11 nm were obtained. They had high photoluminescence quantum yields (PLQYs) of above 95% and, especially, showed strong stability against attack by polar solvents. The PLQY remained 80% even after 12 cycles of purification. Furthermore, after 24 h of continuous radiation by 405 nm laser, the photoluminescence (PL) intensity showed negligible decrease, and the wavelength and full width at half-maximum of PL had no significant change.