| Self-assembly of nanoscale building blocks and molecules into ordered nanostructures is a promising venue for bottom-up materials design. A wide variety of nanoparticles with unique shapes and uniform sizes have been successfully synthesized. However, organizing these nanoparticles into desired, predefined nanostructures is a formidable challenge now facing the materials community. For example, simple 2-D arrays and 3-D superlattices are the prevalent structures from most nanocube self-assemblies. Two practical strategies to impart anisotropy onto nanocubes, namely, attaching polymer tethers to nanoparticle surfaces and introducing directional dipolar interactions, can be applied to achieve more complex assembled structures.; In this dissertation, we conduct computer simulations on nanocube self-assemblies induced by polymer tethers and directional dipole interactions, to examine the various parameters involved in such complicated self-assembly processes, including temperature, concentration, solvent condition, cube size, tether length, tether topology, tether placement, tether number, dipole direction, dipole strength and polydispersity, in order to understand how the packing geometry and interactions between nanocubes can be manipulated to confer precise control over the assembled structures and the phase behavior. First, we simulate monotethered nanocubes and find that the nanocubes favor face-to-face packing in poor solvents, stabilizing the lamellae phases. Next, we simulate different architectures of tethered nanocubes and demonstrate that the steric influence of tether beads can be manipulated to interfere with the face-to-face packing of nanocubes and alter the phase behaviors. We also study the self-assembly of nanocubes with dipoles. We find that the head-to-tail alignment of dipoles, coupled with the face-to-face close packing of nanocubes, dictates the assembled structures. The face-face attraction between nanocubes can also be utilized to control the self-assembled morphologies.; Our results may help to understand and control the impact of the various self-assembly parameters on the assembled structures and phase behaviors. Our studies suggest new opportunities in bottom-up materials design from nanocube self-assemblies. |
