Multilayer Diffraction Reveals That Colloidal Superlattices Approach the Structural Perfection of Single Crystals
Creators
- 1. Nanochemistry Department, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Via Morego 30, 16163 Genova, Italy; International Doctoral Program in Science, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 25121 Brescia, Italy
- 2. Nanochemistry Department, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Via Morego 30, 16163 Genova, Italy
- 3. Istituto di Cristallografia - Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (IC−CNR), Via Amendola 122/O, I-70126 Bari, Italy
- 4. Department of Chemistry, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, United States; Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, United States
- 5. Department of Chemistry, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, United States; Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, United States; Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, United States; Kavli Energy NanoScience Institute, Berkeley, California 94720, United States
- 6. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14850, United States
Description
Colloidal superlattices are fascinating materials made of ordered nanocrystals, yet they are rarely called “atomically precise”. That is unsurprising, given how challenging it is to quantify the degree of structural order in these materials. However, once that order crosses a certain threshold, the constructive interference of X-rays diffracted by the nanocrystals dominates the diffraction pattern, offering a wealth of structural information. By treating nanocrystals as scattering sources forming a self-probing interferometer, we developed a multilayer diffraction method that enabled the accurate determination of the nanocrystal size, interparticle spacing, and their fluctuations for samples of self-assembled CsPbBr3 and PbS nanomaterials. The multilayer diffraction method requires only a laboratory-grade diffractometer and an open-source fitting algorithm for data analysis. The average nanocrystal displacement of 0.33 to 1.43 Å in the studied superlattices provides a figure of merit for their structural perfection and approaches the atomic displacement parameters found in traditional crystals.
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Related works
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- Preprint: 10.26434/chemrxiv.13103507.v1 (DOI)