Molecular Foundry Seminar

"Nanoparticle Deposition via Electrophoresis"

Professor James H. Dickerson, Departments of Physics and Astronomy, Vanderbilt University

Tuesday, April 20th at 1:30 pm, Room 67-3111

Abstract:

Semiconducting, insulating, and metallic nanoparticles have attracted considerable interest recently due to their size-dependent, quantum confinement characteristics, which make them attractive for a broad platform of optical, magnetic, and electronic devices. Proposed commercial applications include solid state lighting devices, magnetic recording media, ultra-light video displays, and bio-imaging reagents.

For nanoparticles to be employed in an array of commercial and industrial applications, a technique for the facile, rapid, and site-selective assembly of homogeneous, densely packed, defect-free thin films must be realized. The most widely used methods for casting nanoparticle (NP) constituents into densely packed, thermally stable films, such as evaporation-driven self assembly and Langmuir-Blodgett casting, have some recognized limitations, including the inability to achieve both large-scale ordering of the nanoparticles as well as robust chemical and structural properties. NP deposition schemes also require an understanding of both the NP dynamics in solution and the interactions that govern nanoparticle-substrate and nanoparticle-nanoparticle binding. Further, these procedures require knowledge of the intrinsic and collective properties of NPs that arise from of electrostatic, magnetic, and fluctuating electric dipole effects. The organization and stability of colloidal NP assemblies are markedly affected by the surface charge state of the constituents. Although much research has been done on the assembly of nanoparticles with a distribution of surface charge states, little has been done on the assembly of like-charged nanoparticles. In this case, repulsive Coulomb interactions, as well as van der Waals, dipole-dipole, and steric interactions govern the types of assemblies that can form. The only nanoparticle deposition scheme that considers the primary physical characteristics of the NPs in the film formation and incorporates the most favorable attributes of NP deposition is electrophoretic deposition.

Recent progress in the electrophoretic deposition of nanoparticles and other nanoscale materials will be the emphasis of this presentation. Highlighted are the recent discoveries of the fabrication of free-standing nanoparticle thin films, comprised solely of electrophoretically deposited iron oxide nanocrystals, cadmium selenide nanocrystals, and carbon nanotubes, as well as transparent films of europium and gadolinium sesquioxide nanoparticles.