Jamming of Miscible Liquids via Electrostatic Repulsion Between Polystyrene-Modified Gold Nanorods and Toluene.

Structured liquids in miscible fluids, due to ineffective resistance to withstand particle self-diffusion, differ from that in immiscible liquids because of interfacial interactions. Here, a kind of structured liquid, jammed by thiol-terminated polystyrene-modified gold nanorods (GNRs) within tetrahydrofuran and toluene (TOL), is developed by introducing electrostatic repulsion to counterbalance the self-diffusion of GNRs. First-principle calculations reveal charge transfer between the GNRs and TOL, resulting in the electrostatic repulsion.

Random fractal-enabled physical unclonable functions with dynamic AI authentication.

A physical unclonable function (PUF) is a foundation of anti-counterfeiting processes due to its inherent uniqueness. However, the self-limitation of conventional graphical/spectral PUFs in materials often makes it difficult to have both high code flexibility and high environmental stability in practice. In this study, we propose a universal, fractal-guided film annealing strategy to realize the random Au network-based PUFs that can be designed on demand in complexity, enabling the tags' intrinsic uniqueness and stability.

Effect of rhodamine 6G dye molecular interactions on counterintuitive self-assembly of noble metal nanorods.

Hypothesis: Self-assembled nanostructures with highly ordered and diversified patterns can be obtained by adding additives that directionally control the interparticle interactions. However, due to the complex non-covalent weak interactions in the self-assembly process, the active mechanism of additives is not fully understood, resulting in the limitation of obtaining the nano-superstructures. The introduction of rhodamine 6G (R6G) enables gold nanorods (GNRs) self-assembled into a counterintuitive tetragonal superlattice, during which the exploration of the influence of R6G molecular interactions on the GNRs self-assembly is of importance.

Morphological and Orientational Controls of Self-Assembly of Gold Nanorods Directed by Evaporative Microflows.

Evaporative self-assembly of noble metal nanoparticles into ordered structures holds great promise for fabricating optical and plasmonic devices by virtue of its low cost, high efficiency, and ease of operation. However, poor control of Marangoni flows is one of the challenges accounting for realizing a well-defined assembly. Herein, based on the theoretical analysis of the influence of evaporative intensity on the assembly, two simple but reliable flow-field-confinement platforms are designed to control the evaporative microflows and to work concurrently with depletion forces to enable the regulated self-assembly of gold nanorods.

Depletion-Mediated Uniform Deposition of Nanorods with Patterned, Multiplexed Assembly.

Device-scale, uniform, and controllable deposition of nanoparticles on various substrates is fundamentally important not only for the fabrication of thin-film devices but also for the large sample statistics of single-particle performances. However, it is challenging to obtain such predefined depositions using a simple and efficient method. Here, we present a novel strategy for obtaining the uniform and particle density/spacing-tunable deposition of nanorods on a linker-free substrate.

Enhanced dyes adsorption from wastewater via FeO nanoparticles functionalized activated carbon.

FeO nanoparticles functionalized activated carbon (FeO/AC) as an adsorbent was prepared and used for fast and effectively removing rhodamine B (RhB) and methyl orange (MO) from aqueous solution. Its physical and chemical properties characterized indicate that the adsorbent possesses abundant surface functional groups, sensitive magnetic response and enhanced specific surface area. Batch experiments were carried out to investigate the adsorption capacity and mechanisms.