Confirmation of the electrostatic self-assembly of nanodiamonds

A reliable explanation for the underlying mechanism responsible for the persistent aggregation and self-assembly of colloidal 5 nm diamond nanoparticles is critical to the development of nanodiamond-based technologies. Although a number of mechanisms have been proposed, validation has been hindered by the inherent difficulty associated with the identification and characterisation of the inter-particle interfaces. In this paper we present results of high resolution aberration corrected electron microscopy and complementary computer simulations to explicate the features involved, and confirm the electrostatic interaction mechanism as the most probable cause for the formation of agglutinates and agglomerates of primary particles.