Technologies Available for License

2012-015: Nanoparticle Superlattices for Custom-designed Metamaterials

Invention: 2012-015

Patent Status: U.S. Patent Number 9,751,758 was issued on September 5, 2017

For technical and licensing related questions, email tcp@bnl.gov.

Summary

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Tetrahedron-driven assembly of spherical particles

Many properties of materials depend on their structural symmetry - for example, piezoelectricity is simply not observed in high-symmetry configurations. When the building blocks of a lattice are isotropic (perfectly uniform), they rarely form a low-symmetry crystal system. Now, by controlling the interlinking of isotropic nanoparticles, it is possible to custom-design the symmetry of a self-assembled lattice and enhance the desired properties in the full nanomaterial.

Description

Lattice Design via Multivalent Linkers (LDML) is based on specially synthesized linkers with multiple attachment points, which determine connections between isotropic DNA-coated particles. Such linkers possess a specific symmetry that, analogously to atomic bonds, will result in the formed lattice displaying a designed symmetry. By introducing linkers with a specific architecture of linker-particle connecting sites determined by molecular bonds (for example DNA, hydrogen bonds etc.), the correspondence between linker symmetry and packing of particles into superstructures emerges during the self-assembly process.

Journal Publication & Intellectual Property

• Diamond family of nanoparticle superlattices (.pdf)
• US 9,751,758 B2 (.pdf)