TY - JOUR

T1 - Morphological Control Over Gel Structures of Mixed Semiconductor-Metal Nanoparticle Gel Networks with Multivalent Cations

AU - Rosebrock, Marina

AU - Zámbó, Dániel

AU - Rusch, Pascal

AU - Graf, Rebecca T.

AU - Pluta, Denis

AU - Borg, Hadir

AU - Dorfs, Dirk

AU - Bigall, Nadja C.

N1 - Funding Information: The authors thank the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No 714429) for funding. In addition, this work received funding from the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) under Germany's excellence strategy within the cluster of excellence PhoenixD (EXC 2122, project ID 390833453) and the grant BI 1708/4‐1. D.D. would like to acknowledge for the support by the German Research Foundation (DFG research Grant DO 1580/5‐1). D.Z. acknowledges the project no. OTKA FK‐142148 financed by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (NRDI Fund) as well as the project no. TKP‐2021‐NKTA‐05 implemented with the support provided by the Ministry of Innovation and Technology of Hungary from the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund, financed under the TKP2021 funding scheme. R.T.G. would like to thank the Hannover School for Nanotechnology for funding. The authors would like to thank A. Feldhoff for the SEM facilities and Jörn Baumgarten and Katharina Kruppa for their work related to a research internship in the topic of ion‐induced gelation. Open access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.

PY - 2023/3/10

Y1 - 2023/3/10

N2 - In this work, the influence of two different types of cations on the gel formation and structure of mixed gel networks comprised of semiconductor (namely CdSe/CdS nanorods NR) and Au nanoparticles (NP) as well as on the respective monocomponent gels is investigated. Heteroassemblies built from colloidal building blocks are usually prepared by ligand removal or cross-linking, thus, both the surface chemistry and the destabilising agent play an essential role in the gelation process. Due to the diversity of the composition, morphology, and optical properties of the nanoparticles, a versatile route to fabricate functional heteroassemblies is of great demand. In the present work, the optics, morphology, and gelation mechanism of pure semiconductor and noble metal as well as their mixed nanoparticle gel networks are revealed. The influence of the gelation agents (bivalent and trivalent cations) on the structure-property correlation is elucidated by photoluminescence, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and electron microscopy measurements. The selection of cations drastically influences the nano- and microstructure of the prepared gel network structures driven by the affinity of the cations to the ligands and the nanoparticle surface. This gelation technique provides a new platform to control the formation of porous assemblies based on semiconductor and metal nanoparticles.

AB - In this work, the influence of two different types of cations on the gel formation and structure of mixed gel networks comprised of semiconductor (namely CdSe/CdS nanorods NR) and Au nanoparticles (NP) as well as on the respective monocomponent gels is investigated. Heteroassemblies built from colloidal building blocks are usually prepared by ligand removal or cross-linking, thus, both the surface chemistry and the destabilising agent play an essential role in the gelation process. Due to the diversity of the composition, morphology, and optical properties of the nanoparticles, a versatile route to fabricate functional heteroassemblies is of great demand. In the present work, the optics, morphology, and gelation mechanism of pure semiconductor and noble metal as well as their mixed nanoparticle gel networks are revealed. The influence of the gelation agents (bivalent and trivalent cations) on the structure-property correlation is elucidated by photoluminescence, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and electron microscopy measurements. The selection of cations drastically influences the nano- and microstructure of the prepared gel network structures driven by the affinity of the cations to the ligands and the nanoparticle surface. This gelation technique provides a new platform to control the formation of porous assemblies based on semiconductor and metal nanoparticles.

KW - aerogel

KW - ionic gelation

KW - mixing

KW - multicomponent

KW - nanoparticles

KW - noble metals

KW - semiconductors

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85146315324&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1002/smll.202206818

DO - 10.1002/smll.202206818

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85146315324

VL - 19

JO - SMALL

JF - SMALL

SN - 1613-6810

IS - 10

M1 - 2206818

ER -