New ordered materials through assembly of heterogeneously charged nanoparticles

The HotCHPot project is aimed at synthesizing and studying the self-assembly behavior of Heterogeneously Charged Particles, also known as Inverse Patchy Colloids (IPCs). These are charged nano- or microparticles with polar patches with the opposite charge that repel each other and attract the rest of the particles, while the non-patch areas on the particles repel each other as well. The relative patch-non-patch charge ratio, the overall particle charge, the screening length and the spatial extent of the patches will be varied to tune the highly directional and selective interactions between these patchy particles. The assembly of these entities in two- and three-dimensional systems will be studied in situ through the combined use of Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS), gated-STED super-resolution microscopy, Ultra Small Angle X-ray Scattering (USAXS), Grazing-Incidence Small-Angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS) and cryo-electron microscopy. The experimental efforts and results will be guided by and compared to predictions made by numerical simulations. Associating experimental work and simulations will allow us to address the highly important question of the design of patchy particles, such that the collective behavior of the resulting material is consistent with the desired properties.