National Synchrotron Light Source Symposium

The generation of nano materials with hierarchical ordered structure is the basis for the development of novel optical, electronic, acoustic and magnetic materials. Plant viruses can be considered as nature nanoparticles that can be tailored chemically and genetically. Compared with the inorganic nanoparticles, the uniform shape and size of viruses provide highly promising possibilities in self-assembly study for the construction of nanoscale materials with hierarchical ordering. On the basis of the surface modification of plant viruses with chemical and genetic methods, we can control the self-assembly of spherical viral particles and rod-like tobacco mosaic virus to form 1D, 2D and 3D self-assemblies. Synchrotron-based small angle x-ray scattering and small angle neutron scattering offer us powerful tools to quantitatively analyze these assembled structures. In particular, functional nanofibers were synthesized by the one-dimensional assembly of TMV and sequential polymerization. Such kind of nanofibers can be readily dispersed in water and it show very interesting conductivity and other physical properties. Two-dimensional ordered films were produced using interfacial assembly of TMV. Finally, three-dimensional ordered composite materials were prepared by combination of sol-gel process and in situ TMV.