Cellular network formation of hydrophobic alkanethiol capped gold nanoparticles on mica surface mediated by water islands

Abstract

Dendritic and cellular networks of nanoparticles are known to form commonly either by random diffusion-limited aggregation or by solvent evaporation dynamics. Using alkanethiol capped gold nanoparticles deposited on mica imaged under ambient and controlled water vapor conditions by atomic force microscope and in situ scanning electron microscope, respectively, we show a third mechanism in action. The cellular network consisting of open and closed polygons is formed by the nucleation and lateral growth of adsorbed water islands, the contact lines of which push the randomly distributed hydrophobic nanoparticles along the growth directions, eventually leading to the polygonal structure formation as the boundaries of the growing islands meet. Such nanoparticle displacement has been possible due to the weakly adhering nature of the hydrophilic substrate, mica. These results demonstrate an important but hitherto neglected effect of adsorbed water in the structure formation on hydrophilic substrates and provide a facile tool for the fabrication of nanoparticle networks without specific particle or substrate modifications and without a tight control on particle deposition conditions during the solvent evaporation.