title: Three-dimensional controlled growth of monodisperse sub-50 nm heterogeneous nanocrystals.
abstract: The ultimate frontier in nanomaterials engineering is to realize their composition control with atomic scale precision to enable fabrication of nanoparticles with desirable size, shape and surface properties. Such control becomes even more useful when growing hybrid nanocrystals designed to integrate multiple functionalities. Here we report achieving such degree of control in a family of rare-earth-doped nanomaterials. We experimentally verify the co-existence and different roles of oleate anions (OA(-)) and molecules (OAH) in the crystal formation. We identify that the control over the ratio of OA(-) to OAH can be used to directionally inhibit, promote or etch the crystallographic facets of the nanoparticles. This control enables selective grafting of shells with complex morphologies grown over nanocrystal cores, thus allowing the fabrication of a diverse library of monodisperse sub-50 nm nanoparticles. With such programmable additive and subtractive engineering a variety of three-dimensional shapes can be implemented using a bottom-up scalable approach.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Advanced Cytometry, ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales 2109, Australia.
authors.forename: Deming
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Advanced Cytometry, ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales 2109, Australia.|Faculty of Science, Institute for Biomedical Materials and Devices, University of Technology Sydney, New South Wales 2007, Australia.
authors.forename: Xiaoxue
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Institute for Superconducting and Electronic Materials, Innovation Campus, University of Wollongong, New South Wales 2522, Australia.
authors.forename: Yi
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1932-6732
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Du
authors.affiliation: Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, 3 Research Link, Singapore 117602, Singapore.
authors.forename: Xian
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Qin
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, National University of Singapore, 3 Science Drive 3, Singapore 117543, Singapore.
authors.forename: Yuhai
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Advanced Cytometry, ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales 2109, Australia.
authors.forename: Chenshuo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Advanced Cytometry, ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales 2109, Australia.|Faculty of Science, Institute for Biomedical Materials and Devices, University of Technology Sydney, New South Wales 2007, Australia.
authors.forename: Shihui
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wen
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Advanced Cytometry, ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales 2109, Australia.|Faculty of Science, Institute for Biomedical Materials and Devices, University of Technology Sydney, New South Wales 2007, Australia.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Ren
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Advanced Cytometry, ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales 2109, Australia.
authors.forename: Ewa M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Goldys
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Advanced Cytometry, ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales 2109, Australia.
authors.forename: James A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Piper
authors.affiliation: Institute for Superconducting and Electronic Materials, Innovation Campus, University of Wollongong, New South Wales 2522, Australia.
authors.forename: Shixue
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dou
authors.affiliation: Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, 3 Research Link, Singapore 117602, Singapore.|Department of Chemistry, National University of Singapore, 3 Science Drive 3, Singapore 117543, Singapore.
authors.forename: Xiaogang
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2517-5790
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Advanced Cytometry, ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales 2109, Australia.|Faculty of Science, Institute for Biomedical Materials and Devices, University of Technology Sydney, New South Wales 2007, Australia.
authors.forename: Dayong
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1046-2666
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Jin