Phosphonic Acid Adsorbates Tune the Surface Potential of TiO2 in Gas and Liquid Environments.

Controlled attachment of molecules to the surface of a material can alter the band structure energies with respect to the surrounding environment via a combination of intrinsic and bonding-induced dipoles. Here, we demonstrate that the surface potential of an application-relevant material, anatase TiO2, can be tuned over a broad energy range of ∼1 eV using a family of dipolar phosphonic acid-based adsorbates. Using TiO2 as an example, we show with photoelectron spectroscopy that these adsorbates are stable in a liquid environment (propylene carbonate). More interestingly, the tunability is substantially retained and follows trends in the computed bound dipole. The electrochemical surface potential is shown to vary over 600 meV, the highest range in electrolytes to the best of our knowledge. Using density functional theory calculations, we rationalize the measured trends and show that the effective dipole upon molecular adsorption and not the intrinsic dipole of the isolated molecules correlates with observed changes in surface potential. Control of the effective dipole, through judicious choice of robust surface species, can allow in situ tuning of energy levels and functionality at active surfaces for energy conversion and storage, biosensing, and molecular electronics.

Evolution of ordered metal chalcogenide architectures through chemical transformations.

Metal chalcogenides are important materials for a myriad of devices, but the ability to control their porosity is lacking. We report a method of inducing hierarchically ordered porosity using surface-treated nanocrystals and complementary architecture-directing agents. The resulting mesoporous materials are robust to thermal annealing and chemical transformations.

Cation exchange on the nanoscale: an emerging technique for new material synthesis, device fabrication, and chemical sensing.

Cation exchange is an age-old technique for the chemical conversion of liquids or extended solids by place-exchanging the cations in an ionic material with a different set of cations. The technique is undergoing a major revival with the advent of high-quality nanocrystals: researchers are now able to overcome the limitations in bulk systems and fully exploit cation exchange for materials synthesis and discovery via rapid, low-temperature transformations in the solid state. In this tutorial review, we discuss cation exchange as a promising materials synthesis and discovery tool. Exchange on the nanoscale exhibits some unique attributes: rapid kinetics at room temperature (orders of magnitude faster than in the bulk) and the tuning of reactivity via control of nanocrystal size, shape, and surface faceting. These features make cation exchange a convenient tool for accessing nanocrystal compositions and morphologies for which conventional synthesis may not be established. A simple exchange reaction allows extension of nanochemistry to a larger part of the periodic table, beyond the typical gamut of II-VI, IV-VI, and III-V materials. Cation exchange transformations in nanocrystals can be topotactic and size- and shape-conserving, allowing nanocrystals synthesized by conventional methods to be used as templates for production of compositionally novel, multicomponent, or doped nanocrystals. Since phases and compositions resulting from an exchange reaction can be kinetically controlled, rather than governed by the phase diagram, nanocrystals of metastable and hitherto inaccessible compositions are attainable. Outside of materials synthesis, applications for cation exchange exist in water purification, chemical staining, and sensing. Since nanoscale cation exchange occurs rapidly at room temperature, it can be integrated with sensitive environments such as those in biological systems. Cation exchange is already allowing access to a variety of new materials and processes. With better mechanistic understanding and control, researchers may be able to advance the field to a stage where a custom nanostructure of arbitrary complexity would be achievable by simple cation exchange chemistry and a basic understanding of the periodic table.

Observation of transient structural-transformation dynamics in a Cu2S nanorod.

The study of first-order structural transformations has been of great interest to scientists in many disciplines. Expectations from phase-transition theory are that the system fluctuates between two equilibrium structures near the transition point and that the region of transition broadens in small crystals. We report the direct observation of structural fluctuations within a single nanocrystal using transmission electron microscopy. We observed trajectories of structural transformations in individual nanocrystals with atomic resolution, which reveal details of the fluctuation dynamics, including nucleation, phase propagation, and pinning of structural domains by defects. Such observations provide crucial insight for the understanding of microscopic pathways of phase transitions.

Assembled monolayer nanorod heterojunctions.

Compositional and interfacial control in heterojunction thin films is critical to the performance of complex devices that separate or combine charges. For high performance, these applications require epitaxially matched interfaces, which are difficult to produce. Here, we present a new architecture for producing low-strain, single-crystalline heterojunctions using self-assembly and in-film cation exchange of colloidal nanorods. A systematic set of experiments demonstrates a cation exchange procedure that lends precise control over compositional depths in a monolayer film of vertically aligned nanorods. Compositional changes are reflected by electrical performance as rectification is induced, quenched, and reversed during cation exchange from CdS to Cu(2)S to PbS. As an additional benefit, we achieve this single-crystal architecture via an inherently simple and low-temperature wet chemical process, which is general to a variety of chemistries. This permits ensemble measurement of transport through a colloidal nanoparticle film with no interparticle charge hopping.