Tuneable 2D self-assembly of plasmonic nanoparticles at liquid|liquid interfaces

Understanding the structure and assembly of nanoparticles at liquid|liquid interfaces is paramount to their integration into devices for sensing, catalysis, electronics and optics. However, many difficulties arise when attempting to resolve the structure of such interfacial assemblies. In this article we use a combination of X-ray diffraction and optical reflectance to determine the structural arrangement and plasmon coupling between 12.8 nm diameter gold nanoparticles assembled at a water|1,2-dichloroethane interface. The liquid|liquid interface provides a molecularly flat and defect-correcting platform for nanoparticles to self-assemble. The amount of nanoparticles assembling at the interface can be controlled via the concentration of electrolyte within either the aqueous or organic phase. At higher electrolyte concentration more nanoparticles can settle at the liquid|liquid interface resulting in a decrease in nanoparticle spacing as observed from X-ray diffraction experiments. The plasmonic coupling between the nanoparticles as they come closer together is observed by a red-shift in the optical reflectance spectra. The optical reflectance and the X-ray diffraction data are combined to introduce a new 'plasmon ruler'. This allows extraction of structural information from simple optical spectroscopy techniques, with important implications for understanding the structure of self-assembled nanoparticle films at liquid interfaces.</p

The Missing Link! A New Skeleton for Evolutionary Multi-agent Systems in Erlang

Evolutionary multi-agent systems (EMAS) play a critical role in many artificial intelligence applications that are in use today. In this paper, we present a new generic skeleton in Erlang for parallel EMAS computations. The skeleton enables us to capture a wide variety of concrete evolutionary computations that can exploit the same underlying parallel implementation. We demonstrate the use of our skeleton on two different evolutionary computing applications: (1) computing the minimum of the Rastrigin function; and (2) solving an urban traffic optimisation problem. We show that we can obtain very good speedups (up to 142.44 ×× the sequential performance) on a variety of different parallel hardware, while requiring very little parallelisation effort.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Quantum electrodynamics at room temperature coupling a single vibrating molecule with a plasmonic nanocavity

Here, the authors report the coupling between a single dye molecule and plasmonic nanocavity at room temperature. They provide insight into the statistical properties of the emission and observe non-classical emission, with photon bunching and anti-bunching regimes dependent on the excitation wavelength

Plasmonic Ruler at the Liquid–Liquid Interface

We report on a simple, fast, and inexpensive method to study adsorption and desorption of metallic nanoparticles at a liquid/liquid interface. These interfaces provide an ideal platform for the formation of two-dimensional monolayers of nanoparticles, as they form spontaneously and are defect-correcting, acting as 2D “nanoparticle traps”. Such two-dimensional, self-assembled nanoparticle arrays have a vast range of potential applications in displays, catalysis, plasmonic rulers, optoelectronics, sensors, and detectors. Here, we show that 16 nm diameter gold nanoparticles can be controllably adsorbed to a water/1,2-dichloroethane interface, and that we can control the average interparticle spacing at the interface over the range 6–35 nm. The particle density and average interparticle spacing are experimentally assessed by measuring the optical plasmonic response of the nanoparticles in the bulk and at the interface and by comparing the experimental data with existing theoretical results

Superhydrophobic Surfaces as an On-Chip Microfluidic Toolkit for Total Droplet Control

We propose and outline a novel technique designed to utilize the unique surface repulsion present between aqueous droplets and customizable superhydrophobic surfaces for the on-chip spatial and temporal manipulation of droplets within microfluidic architectures. Through the integration of carefully designed and prepatterned superhydrophobic surfaces into polymer microfluidic chipsets, it is possible to take advantage of this enhanced surface repulsion to passively manipulate droplets on the microscale for a wide range of droplet operations, including but not limited to acceleration, deceleration, merging, and path control. This work aims to help fulfill and stimulate development based around current requirements for additional passive analytical manipulation and detection techniques in order to enable a reduction in experimental design complexity with the goal of facilitating and improving portability for Lab-on-a-chip devices