{"id":191235,"date":"2024-06-14T16:23:31","date_gmt":"2024-06-14T21:23:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/06\/researchers-create-nanocubes-forming-floating-checkerboards-via-self-assembly"},"modified":"2024-06-14T16:23:31","modified_gmt":"2024-06-14T21:23:31","slug":"researchers-create-nanocubes-forming-floating-checkerboards-via-self-assembly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/06\/researchers-create-nanocubes-forming-floating-checkerboards-via-self-assembly","title":{"rendered":"Researchers create nanocubes forming floating checkerboards via self-assembly"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/researchers-create-nanocubes-forming-floating-checkerboards-via-self-assembly.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Researchers have engineered nanosized cubes that spontaneously form a two-dimensional checkerboard pattern when dropped on the surface of water. The work, published in Nature Communications (\u201cSelf-assembly of nanocrystal checkerboard patterns via non-specific interactions\u201d), presents a simple approach to create complex nanostructures through a technique called self-assembly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a cool way to get materials to build themselves,\u201d said study co-senior author Andrea Tao, a professor in the Aiiso Yufeng Li Family Department of Chemical and Nano Engineering at the University of California San Diego. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to go into a nanofabrication lab and do all these complex and precise manipulations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Each nanocube is composed of a silver crystal with a mixture of hydrophobic (oily) and hydrophilic (water-loving) molecules attached to the surface. When a suspension of these nanocubes is introduced to a water surface, they arrange themselves such that they touch at their corner edges. This arrangement creates an alternating pattern of solid cubes and empty spaces, resulting in a checkerboard pattern.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers have engineered nanosized cubes that spontaneously form a two-dimensional checkerboard pattern when dropped on the surface of water. The work, published in Nature Communications (\u201cSelf-assembly of nanocrystal checkerboard patterns via non-specific interactions\u201d), presents a simple approach to create complex nanostructures through a technique called self-assembly. \u201cIt\u2019s a cool way to get materials to build [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,38,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-191235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chemistry","category-engineering","category-nanotechnology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191235\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}