Octo-diamond crystal of nanoscale tetrahedra with interchanging chiral motifs
Despite their simplicity, tetrahedra can assemble into diverse high- and low-density structures. Here we report a low-density 'octo-diamond' structure formed by nanoscale solid tetrahedra with a 64-tetrahedron unit cell containing 8 cubic-diamond subcells. The formed crystal is achiral, but is composed of chiral bilayers with alternating handedness. The left- and right-handed chirality of the bilayers, combined with the plasmonic nature of the gold tetrahedra, produces chiroptical responses at the crystal surface. We uncover that the hydrophobic substrate facilitates the arrangement of tetrahedra into irregular ring-like patterns, creating a critical, uneven topography to stabilize the observed octo-diamond structure. This study reveals a potent way to affect colloidal crystallization through particle-substrate interactions, expanding the nanoparticle self-assembly toolbox.
Authors
- Aaron Michelson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3060-3788)
- Sharon C. Glotzer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7197-0085)
- Kim Kisslinger (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6528-7044)
- Tobias Dwyer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6443-7744)
- Oleg Gang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5534-3121)
- Hanfei Yan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6824-0367)
- Honghu Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1784-7825)
- Timothy C. Moore (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5709-7259)
- Xiaobo Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2943-2926)
- Fang Lu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3765-7615)
- Yugang Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7832-1475)
Institutions
- Binghamton University (US)
- Yonsei University (KR)
- Brookhaven National Laboratory (US)
- University of Michigan (US)
- Institute for Basic Science (KR)
- Michigan Medicine (US)
- BioSurfaces (United States) (US)
- Columbia University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Materials
- Published
- 2025-03-24
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-025-02185-y
- Citations
- 6
- Primary Topic
- Pickering emulsions and particle stabilization
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 3.11
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Office of Science
- Division of Materials Research
- Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure
- Basic Energy Sciences
- Army Research Office
- Brookhaven National Laboratory