A new study published in Nature highlights a major collaborative achievement between COMPASS researchers at the University of Michigan and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Led by Professors Qian Chen and Sharon Glotzer, the work introduces a pottery-inspired stenciling method for designing nanoparticles with unprecedented precision.
Drawing inspiration from ceramic art, first author Ahyoung Kim discovered that the same masking technique used to create intricate pottery designs could be applied at the nanoscale. Using iodide as a chemical “stencil,” the team was able to selectively coat regions of gold nanoparticles with polymer patches—giving scientists an entirely new way to control how nanoparticles assemble into larger, ordered structures.
The approach bridges experiment, modeling, and simulation, demonstrating how artistic creativity and materials engineering can come together to shape the next generation of metamaterials and optical systems.
“This stenciling method is super powerful because it provides a quantum leap in control over the building blocks’ designs,” said Sharon Glotzer, Co-PI of COMPASS.
The research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, the National Science Foundation, and the Office of Naval Research.