Depletion attraction forces can be used to assemble nanorod superlattices and branched nanocrystal networks, say Italian chemists. The nanostructures could be used in a variety of applications, including photovoltaics, they claim.
Liberato Manna and colleagues at the Italian Institute of Technology, Genova, discovered that in the presence of molecules such as oleic acid, nanorods assemble into superlattices. They also found that tetrapod-shaped nanocrystals form networks under similar conditions.
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