Self-assembly and reassembly phenomena of organic-inorganic hybrid nanocrystals in highly ordered nanocrystalline multi/monolayer

Uniform and highly ordered nanocrystalline multilayers were obtained after tetrahydrofuran annealing of pre-assembled nanocrystals on the substrate surfaces. As a result of the rearrangement process during solvent annealing, cerium oxide hybrid nanocrystals were correctly positioned in the nanocrystalline film layers because of high carrier ability and the high affinity of the solvent to the nanocrystals. It was also found that solvent annealing had almost no effect on the nanocrystalline monolayer macroscopically, indicating that nanocrystals chemisorbed on the modified substrate surface did not move freely as compared with nanocrystals on top of the pre-assembled nanocrystals. A sufficiently highly ordered nanocrystalline structure was self-assembled in the concentrated solvent and thus printed to such a sticky surface from a face-down configuration that prevented the random deposition of nanocrystals, resulting in the uniform and ordered nanocrystalline monolayer of macroscopic size.