Time-Resolved SAXS Study of Polarity- and Surfactant-Controlled Superlattice Transformations of Oleate-Capped Nanocubes During Solvent Removal

Zhong Peng Lv*, Martin Kapuscinski, Gábor Járvás, Shun Yu, Lennart Bergström

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)
61 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Structural transformations and lattice expansion of oleate-capped iron oxide nanocube superlattices are studied by time-resolved small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) during solvent removal. The combination of conductor-like screening model for real solvents (COSMO-RS) theory with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling provides information on the solvent composition and polarity during droplet evaporation. Evaporation-driven poor-solvent enrichment in the presence of free oleic acid results in the formation of superlattices with a tilted face-centered cubic (fcc) structure when the polarity reaches its maximum. The tilted fcc lattice expands subsequently during the removal of the poor solvent and eventually transforms to a regular simple cubic (sc) lattice during the final evaporation stage when only free oleic acid remains. Comparative studies show that both the increase in polarity as the poor solvent is enriched and the presence of a sufficient amount of added oleic acid is required to promote the formation of structurally diverse superlattices with large domain sizes.

Original languageEnglish
Article number2106768
JournalSmall
Volume18
Issue number22
Early online date6 May 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2022
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Keywords

  • anisotropic nanoparticles
  • small angle X-ray scattering
  • superlattice transformation
  • time-dependent measurements

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