Designing the Self-Assembly of Disordered Materials Via Color Frustration

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Chemical Engineering
• Condensed Matter Physics

Background:

• Atomic-level control has advanced crystalline material design.
• Similar strategies for amorphous materials are lacking.
• Controlling amorphous material self-assembly is a significant challenge.

Purpose of the Study:

• To devise a strategy for programming the self-assembly of amorphous structures.
• To encode frustration into building block design for controlled self-assembly.
• To create a novel, thermodynamically stable disordered phase.

Main Methods:

• Designing building blocks to locally favor five-member ring formation.
• Utilizing icosahedral symmetry in dodecahedral cages to prevent long-range order.
• Observing spontaneous nucleation from the liquid phase.

Main Results:

• A network of face-sharing dodecahedral cages was successfully formed.
• The resulting structure exhibits icosahedral symmetry, preventing long-range order.
• A novel, thermodynamically stable disordered phase was discovered, distinct from kinetically arrested glasses.

Conclusions:

• Programmable interactions can stabilize frustrated amorphous phases.
• This approach enables the rational design of amorphous materials.
• It paves the way for a new generation of disordered materials with tailored properties.