Assembling Inorganic Nanocrystal Gels

TL;DR

This review discusses various mechanisms for assembling inorganic nanocrystal gels, emphasizing how different approaches influence gel properties and enable the design of reconfigurable nanomaterials.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of nanocrystal gel assembly methods, highlighting their mechanisms, advantages, and potential for creating reconfigurable materials.

Findings

Different assembly mechanisms impact gel stability and tunability.

Surface chemistry and small molecules mediate inter-nanocrystal attractions.

Each method offers unique advantages for designing reconfigurable nanomaterials.

Abstract

Inorganic nanocrystal gels retain distinct properties of individual nanocrystals while offering tunable, network structure-dependent characteristics. We review different mechanisms for assembling gels from colloidal nanocrystals including (1) controlled destabilization, (2) direct bridging, (3) depletion, as well as linking mediated by (4) coordination bonding or (5) dynamic covalent bonding, and we highlight how each impacts gel properties. These approaches use nanocrystal surface chemistry or the addition of small molecules to mediate inter-nanocrystal attractions. Each method offers advantages in terms of gel stability, reversibility, or tunability and presents new opportunities for design of reconfigurable materials and fueled assemblies.