Tailoring the interparticle distance in Langmuir nanoparticle films.

The ability to control the interparticle distance in self-assembled arrays of nanoparticles plays an important role in a large number of applications, which require tunable electronic and photonic properties. Importantly, practical applications in real devices rely on arrays satisfying more stringent requirements of lateral homogeneity controlled over a large scale. Herein, the interparticle distance in ordered nanoparticle assemblies was controlled by varying the nanoparticle effective size via the molecular chemical nature and chain length of the ligand.

Epitaxial growth of sexiphenyl on Al(111): from monolayer to crystalline films.

A combination of in situ surface sensitive-techniques, UV photoemission and low energy electron diffraction, with ex situ bulk sensitive X-ray diffraction reveals the formation of epitaxial thin films of sexiphenyl on Al(111) starting from the first monolayer. For room temperature growth, highly ordered films are formed with a unique alignment of the sexiphenyl molecules with the long axes of all molecules aligned parallel to both the surface and the <10> azimuthal directions of Al(111). This is related to a densely packed highly commensurate first monolayer, which acts as a template for the unique (21) crystallite orientation observed.