We report about the fabrication and characterization of iron oxide nanoparticle thin film superlattices. The formation into different film morphologies is controlled by tuning the particle plus solvent-to-substrate interaction. It turns out that the wetting vs. dewetting properties of the solvent before the self-assembly process during solvent evaporation plays a major role to determine the resulting film morphology. In addition to layerwise growth also three-dimensional mesocrystalline growth is evidenced. The understanding of the mechanisms ruling nanoparticle self-assembly represents an important step toward the fabrication of novel materials with tailored optical, magnetic or electrical transport properties.
@article{arxiv.1307.4693,
title = {Growth modes of nanoparticle superlattice thin films},
author = {D. Mishra and D. Greving and G. A. Badini Confalonieri and J. Perlich and B. P. Toperverg and H. Zabel and O. Petracic},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1307.4693},
year = {2015}
}