The importance of nano-edges in atomic stencilling and chiroptically active assembly of patchy gold tetrahedra (opens in new tab)

Molecular patterning of proteins with atomic precision encodes folding and recognition. Emulating this patterning on synthetic surfaces can integrate multifunctionality with directional interactions for catalysis, biomedicine, nanomanufacturing and agriculture. Here we extend recently reported atomic stencilling, where iodides mask Au{111} facets to direct polymer grafting, to gold nanotetrahedra. Despite all faces being {111}, unexpected patch patterns emerge due to nanoparticle edges. Tunin...