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Self-assembly of Complex Two-dimensional Shapes from Single-stranded DNA Tiles

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Published on: May 8, 2015

Exploring group 14 structures: 1D to 2D to 3D.

Xiao-Dong Wen¹, Thomas J Cahill, Roald Hoffmann

¹Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Cornell University, Baker Laboratory, Ithaca, New York 14853-1301, USA.

Chemistry (Weinheim an Der Bergstrasse, Germany)

|May 21, 2010

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Group 14 elements exhibit diverse structural stability based on coordination number. Multilayer graphene is only stable for Carbon; other elements collapse, forming vertical bonds.

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Area of Science:

Materials Science
Solid-State Physics
Computational Chemistry

Background:

Group 14 elements (Carbon to Lead) display varied structural properties.
Coordination number (CN) is a key factor in the stability of extended structures.
Understanding these structures is crucial for predicting material behavior.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the stability of one-, two-, and three-dimensional structures of Group 14 elements at 1 atm.
To analyze the role of coordination number in structural preferences across the group.
To explore the stability of multilayer graphene structures for these elements.

Main Methods:

Theoretical study of various dimensional structures for Group 14 elements.
Analysis of coordination number's influence on structural stability.
Molecular dynamics simulations for liquid state structures.

Main Results:

Carbon favors low coordination numbers (2-4) and exhibits instability at higher CN (>4).
Silicon and Germanium show a preference for four-coordination but allow for higher CN (5-6).
Tin and Lead display flexible bonding, with structures from 4- to 12-coordination being energetically similar, indicating a propensity towards the liquid state.
Simulations show an increasing effective first coordination number from Si (5.1) to Pb (10.4) in the liquid state.
Multilayer graphene structures are predicted to be unstable for Si, Ge, Sn, and Pb, collapsing into vertically bonded structures, while remaining stable for Carbon.

Conclusions:

Structural stability in Group 14 elements is strongly dependent on the element and its coordination number.
The flexibility in bonding for heavier Group 14 elements influences their transition to the liquid state.
Only carbon can form stable multilayer graphene; other elements in the group cannot maintain such structures under ambient pressure.