Professor Anderson H.C. Shum of the Department of Mechanical Engineering had worked on the research for the topic “One-Pot Self-Assembly of Dual-Color Domes Using Mono-Sized Silica Nanoparticles”. The research has beenis recently published by Nano Letters on June 22, 2022.
Details of the publication:
One-Pot Self-Assembly of Dual-Color Domes Using Mono-Sized Silica Nanoparticles Chang Li, Yafeng Yu, Huizeng Li, Jingxuan Tian, Wei Guo, Yanting Shen, Huanqing Cui, Yi Pan, Yanlin Song, and Ho Cheung Shum, Article in Nano Letters, https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c01090
Abstract:
Spots with dual structural colors on the skin of some organisms in nature are of tremendous interest due to the unique function of their dye-free colors. However, imitation of them requires complicated manufacturing processes, expensive equipment, and multiple predesigned building blocks. In this work, a one-pot strategy based on the phase-separation-assisted nonuniform self-assembly of monosized silica nanoparticles is developed to construct domes with dual structural colors. In drying poly(ethylene glycol)-dextran-based (PEG-DEX) droplets, monosized nanoparticles distribute nonuniformly in two compartments due to the droplet inner flow and different nanoparticle compatibility with the two phases. The dome colors are derived from the self-assembled nanoparticles and are programmable by regulating the assembly conditions. The one-pot strategy enables the preparation of multicolor using only one type of building block. With the dual-color domes, encrypted patterns with a high volume of contents are designed, showing promising applications in information delivery.