Generalized Preparation of Two-Dimensional Quasi-nanosheets via Self-assembly of Nanoparticles

Two-dimensional (2D) nanomaterials are attracting increasing research interest because of their unique properties and promising applications. Here, we report a facile method to manipulate the assembly of nanoparticles (NPs) to fabricate free-standing 2D quasi-nanosheets. The as-generated 2D products are composed of few-layer NPs; that is, their thicknesses are only tens of nanometers but lateral dimensions could be up to several micrometers. Therefore, the novel structure was denoted as 2D "quasi-nanosheets (QNS)". Specifically, several types of building blocks could be assembled into 2D unary, binary, ternary, and even quaternary QNS by a universal procedure. The entire assembly process is carried out in solution and mediated simply by tuning the concentration of ligands surrounding the NPs. In contrast to traditional assembly techniques, even without any substrate or template, these QNS showed exceptionally high stability. They can remain intact for several days without any disassembly regardless of the solvent environment (e.g., water, ethanol, methanol, and hexane). In general, our method has effectively tackled several limitations associated with traditional assembly techniques and allows more freedom in manipulating assembly of NPs, which may hold great potential for future fabrication of 2D devices with rich functionalities.