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Updated: May 20, 2025
Stable DNA Motifs, 1D and 2D Nanostructures Constructed from Small Circular DNA Molecules
Published on: April 12, 2019
Octo-diamond crystal of nanoscale tetrahedra with interchanging chiral motifs
Fang Lu1, Yugang Zhang2, Tobias Dwyer3
1Center for Functional Nanomaterials, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, USA. flu@bnl.gov.
Abstract:
Despite their simplicity, tetrahedra can assemble into diverse high- and low-density structures. Here we report a low-density 'octo-diamond' structure formed by nanoscale solid tetrahedra with a 64-tetrahedron unit cell containing 8 cubic-diamond subcells. The formed crystal is achiral, but is composed of chiral bilayers with alternating handedness. The left- and right-handed chirality of the bilayers, combined with the plasmonic nature of the gold tetrahedra, produces chiroptical responses at the crystal surface. We uncover that the hydrophobic substrate facilitates the arrangement of tetrahedra into irregular ring-like patterns, creating a critical, uneven topography to stabilize the observed octo-diamond structure. This study reveals a potent way to affect colloidal crystallization through particle-substrate interactions, expanding the nanoparticle self-assembly toolbox.
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