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Peer-reviewedCC BYJournal of the American Chemical Society

Structure Selection in Ionic Colloidal Crystals via Independent Charge Tuning.

  • Steven van Kesteren1,2
  • Shihao Zang1
  • Cheuk W Leung1
  • Glen M Hocky1,3
  • Stefano Sacanna1
  1. 1Department of Chemistry, New York University, New York, New York10003, United States.
  2. 2Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, ETH Zurich, Zurich8092, Switzerland.
  3. 3Simons Center for Computational Physical Chemistry, New York University, New York, New York10003, United States.
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Abstract

Colloidal building blocks can assemble into many different crystal structures, yet selecting a specific lattice without redesigning the particles remains a central challenge in programmable self-assembly. Here we demonstrate that independent tuning of colloidal surface charge enables deterministic structure selection using a fixed pair of oppositely charged colloids. Micromolar additions of simple ionic surfactants independently adjust the surface charge of each colloidal species without significantly altering solution ionic strength, allowing the same building blocks to assemble into Th3P4-, CsCl-, Cu3Au-, and Li3Fe-like crystals, the last of which represents a previously unreported colloidal crystal structure. Experiments and molecular dynamics simulations reveal that structure selection is governed by the competition between Coulombic attraction and lattice-specific like-charge repulsion. Experiments across different particle-size ratios further demonstrate the generality of this approach, with additional surfactant-induced transitions between Th3P4-, AlB2-, and Cr3Si-like structures. These findings establish charge asymmetry as a general design parameter for ionic colloidal assembly.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{kesteren2026structure,
  title = {{Structure Selection in Ionic Colloidal Crystals via Independent Charge Tuning.}},
  author = {Steven van Kesteren and Shihao Zang and Cheuk W Leung and Glen M Hocky and Stefano Sacanna},
  journal = {Journal of the American Chemical Society},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.1021/jacs.6c08143},
  url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42912272},
  note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Structure Selection in Ionic Colloidal Crystals via Independent Charge Tuning.
AU  - Steven van Kesteren
AU  - Shihao Zang
AU  - Cheuk W Leung
AU  - Glen M Hocky
AU  - Stefano Sacanna
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/01
JO  - Journal of the American Chemical Society
DO  - 10.1021/jacs.6c08143
UR  - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42912272
AB  - Colloidal building blocks can assemble into many different crystal structures, yet selecting a specific lattice without redesigning the particles remains a central challenge in programmable self-assembly. Here we demonstrate that independent tuning of colloidal surface charge enables deterministic structure selection using a fixed pair of oppositely charged colloids. Micromolar additions of simple ionic surfactants independently adjust the surface charge of each colloidal species without significantly altering solution ionic strength, allowing the same building blocks to assemble into Th3P4-, CsCl-, Cu3Au-, and Li3Fe-like crystals, the last of which represents a previously unreported colloidal crystal structure. Experiments and molecular dynamics simulations reveal that structure selection is governed by the competition between Coulombic attraction and lattice-specific like-charge repulsion. Experiments across different particle-size ratios further demonstrate the generality of this approach, with additional surfactant-induced transitions between Th3P4-, AlB2-, and Cr3Si-like structures. These findings establish charge asymmetry as a general design parameter for ionic colloidal assembly.
SN  - 0002-7863
SN  - 1520-5126
ER  -