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Updated: Feb 13, 2026

Liquid-cell Transmission Electron Microscopy for Tracking Self-assembly of Nanoparticles
Published on: October 16, 2017
Self-Assembly of Janus Nanoparticles into Transformable Suprastructures
Chengjun Kang1, Andrei Honciuc1
1Institute of Chemistry and Biotechnology , Zurich University of Applied Sciences , Einsiedlerstrasse 31 , 8820 Waedenswil , Switzerland.
Abstract:
One of the greatest challenges in colloidal self-assembly is to obtain multiple distinct but transformable suprastructures from the same particles in monophasic solvent. Here, we combined deformable and rigid lobes in snowman-shaped amphiphilic Janus nanoparticles (JNPs). These JNPs exhibited excellent ability to self-assemble into micelles, worms, mini-capsules, giant- and elongated-vesicles. This rich suprastructural diversity was obtained by kinetic manipulation of the self-assembly conditions. The suprastructures consist of four to thousands of highly oriented JNPs with dimensions ranging from 500-nanometer to 30-μm. Moreover, the suprastructures can be transformed into one another or dissembled into individual particles. These features make colloidal assembly highly comparable to that of amphiphilic molecules, however, key differences were discovered.
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