Editorial Cite This: Acc. Chem. Res. 2019, 52, 1−1
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Controlling Nanoparticles with Atomic Precision
Acc. Chem. Res. 2019.52:1-1. Downloaded from pubs.acs.org by 191.96.170.50 on 01/15/19. For personal use only.
Guest Editorial for the Accounts of Chemical Research special issue “Toward Atomic Precision in Nanoscience”. electrochemical, magnetic, and vibrational properties, as well as the evolution behavior by correlating the properties with structure. Tailored nanoclusters (e.g., the same size with different structures or the same core with different surfaces) have provided opportunities for understanding which part plays what roles. This unprecedented level would not have become possible without atomically precise nanoclusters. • Theoretical analyses on nanoclusters and the development of new computational methods for large systems have significantly contributed to various aspects of nanoclusters, such as the electronic and geometrical structures, optical excitations, chirality descriptors, and catalytic mechanisms, to name a few. For future work, major efforts are still needed for exploring the new properties of nanoclusters, pushing the upper size boundary, controlling the assembly for ensemble functions, and extending the methodology to other types of nanoparticles. We hope this Special Issue serves as a call for atomic precision in nanoscience research. The exploration of atomically precise nanoparticles and assembly will provide enormous opportunities not only in fundamental research of nanoscience, but also in the development of new applications of such unique nanomaterials. The research toward “atomic precision” is expected to open up new horizons in nanoscience.
Since the 1990s, nanoscience has achieved significant advances, especially with the boost from the United States National Nanotechnology Initiative since 2000 and the worldwide governmental investments in research and development of nanotechnology. With respect to chemistry, a variety of nanoparticles and nanostructures have been designed and explored for applications in catalysis, energy conversion and storage, sensing, and biomedicine. However, some fundamental hurdles have been encountered in scientific research due to the imprecisions of nanoparticles, such as the common issue of size dispersity (e.g., 5% in even highly monodispersed samples), the mysterious surfaces of nanoparticles, the unknown core/ligand interfaces, the defects and elusive edge structures in 2D materials, and the still missing information on alloy patterns in bi- and multimetallic nanoparticles. Such imprecisions preclude deep understandings of many fundamental aspects of nanoparticles, including the atomic-level mechanism of surface catalysis, interfacial charge transfer in energy flow, fluorescence blinking in quantum dots, and spin canting in magnetic nanoparticles, etc. The impressions of nanoparticles have prompted nanochemists to pursue a new step in nanoscience research. To solve the aforementioned fundamental issues and many unforeseen ones, it is necessary to obtain the total structures (i.e., core plus surface) of nanoparticles. Therefore, recent research has been geared toward controlling nanoparticles with atomic precision and further crystallization of such particles for solving their total structures. Thanks to the major efforts of nanochemists, the goals have been partially fulfilled with success in Au, Ag, Cu, Pd, Rh, metal hydride, bimetallic, and semiconductor nanoparticles, at least in the ultrasmall size regime (e.g., 1−3 nm diameter, often called nanoclusters). This Special Issue offers the reader a glimpse into this emerging branch of nanoscience and promotes the “atomic precision” concept in nanoscience research. The following aspects are covered in this Issue. • Synthesis of atomically precise metal and semiconductor nanoclusters and the principles governing such syntheses, as well as mechanistic understanding. Nanoscience research heavily relies on synthetic breakthroughs. The establishment of synthetic methodologies for atomically precise nanoclusters is of critical importance and will lay the foundation for future exploration of unique properties of such materials, as well as their assembly and applications. • Building on the synthetic success of atomically precise nanoclusters, nanochemists can now unravel the mysterious atomic-level details of such particles, especially the core/ligand interfacial structures. New structural motifs, unusual crystalline structures, and alloying patterns have been discovered. The results obtained from ultrasmall nanoparticles have indeed provided valuable implications for the structure of larger particles. • The attainment of structurally characterized nanoclusters allows one to gain fundamental understanding of their optical, © 2019 American Chemical Society
Rongchao Jin, Guest Editor Carnegie Mellon University
Yong Pei, Guest Editor Xiangtan University
Tatsuya Tsukuda, Guest Editor
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The University of Tokyo
AUTHOR INFORMATION
ORCID
Rongchao Jin: 0000-0002-2525-8345 Yong Pei: 0000-0003-0585-2045 Tatsuya Tsukuda: 0000-0002-0190-6379 Notes
Views expressed in this editorial are those of the authors and not necessarily the views of the ACS.
Published: January 15, 2019 1
DOI: 10.1021/acs.accounts.8b00631 Acc. Chem. Res. 2019, 52, 1−1
