Berlin 2024 – scientific programme
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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik
O 6: Organic Molecules on Inorganic Substrates I: Adsorption & Growth
O 6.10: Talk
Monday, March 18, 2024, 12:45–13:00, MA 042
Understanding the role of adsorbed CTAB in anisotropic nanostructure growth — •Esmée Berger1, Narjes Khosravian1, Joakim Löfgren2, and Paul Erhart1 — 1Department of Physics, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden — 2Department of Applied Physics, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland
Surfactants have immense technological relevance. Cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) is, for example, commonly used for structural tuning and increased stability during wet-chemical synthesis of nanostructures. The functionality of surfactants is dictated by their phase diagrams, which are often very complex in aqueous solution. The complexity of these systems is further increased during nanostructure growth, due to the presence of surfaces. To improve control over the shapes and sizes of wet-chemically synthesized nanostructures, we must understand the functionality, and thus the structure, of the adsorbed surfactants as these fundamentally alter the nature of the interface, affecting the growth. Phase diagrams are, however, very difficult to probe. To get some insight into the role of surfactants during nanostructure growth we consider CTAB, whose micellar phase has been pointed out as the primary mechanism for anisotropic growth of inorganic nanoparticles. Those results were, however, based on single values of CTAB surface density. To elucidate the role of CTAB in this context, a surface phase diagram must be established. In this work, we use atomistic simulations to develop an understanding of this surface phase diagram from a modeling perspective.
Keywords: CTAB; Nanostructure Growth; Phase Diagram; Surfactants; Molecular Dynamics