MIT Researchers Discover New Path to Designing Novel Nanoscale Materials
WHO:
Science Daily - MIT scientists challenged conventional thinking about how molecular connections affect nanoparticle assembly.
The Brighter Side of News - The research team included MIT researchers Rob Macfarlane, Nicholas Sbalbi, Hana Shinzawa and Matthew Ye; Stephen Kronenberger of the University of Delaware; and Arthi Jayaraman, whose affiliation on the paper was IBM France.
The Brighter Side of News - Macfarlane is the Richard P. Simmons Professor in Metallurgy in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Sbalbi is an MIT doctoral candidate, Shinzawa is an MIT undergraduate, and Kronenberger is a University of Delaware doctoral student.
WHAT:
Science Daily - MIT scientists found that flexible molecular connections, rather than rigid ones, can enable new ways to arrange nanoparticles and form previously unseen crystal structures.
The Brighter Side of News - Experiments and simulations showed that deformable polymer connectors can create bonding preferences as nanoparticles assemble, without prepatterning each particle.
The Brighter Side of News - Adjusting nanoparticle sizes and ligand-chain lengths changed how particles connected and the structures they formed.
The Brighter Side of News - Greater ligand flexibility could lower the number of neighboring particles, or lattice coordination number, and produce less densely packed structures.
The Brighter Side of News - The study was published in *Nature Materials*. It demonstrated structural control, not improved performance in a finished device.
The Brighter Side of News - Proposed application areas include photonics, medicine, agriculture and chemical catalysis; their practical benefits remain to be established.
WHERE:
The Brighter Side of News - The experimental work was conducted by researchers at MIT; the computational work involved a doctoral student at the University of Delaware.
WHY:
Science Daily - Controlling nanoparticle arrangements could enable designer materials with unusual properties for electronics, medicine and energy.
The Brighter Side of News - Nanoparticle arrangement affects material properties, and the tendency of attractive particles to pack densely restricts possible architectures.
HOW:
The Brighter Side of News - The team used nanoparticles coated with flexible polymer ligands bearing electrically charged tips. Oppositely charged tips attract, and the chains bend and reorganize as particles approach.
The Brighter Side of News - The researchers combined experiments with molecular-dynamics simulations. Sbalbi, Shinzawa and Ye performed experiments and analyzed data; Kronenberger conducted and analyzed simulations. Macfarlane supervised the experiments, and Jayaraman supervised the computational research.
The Brighter Side of News - Macfarlane said, “The amount of flexibility of the polymer dictates how many bonds it has,” and said the method can make lattices “we have never seen before.”
(UPDATED November 4, 2026 16:03 UTC)
MIT scientists found flexible molecular connections can arrange nanoparticles into unseen crystal structures. Adjustable polymer chains changed how particles bonded and packed together. The discovery could help researchers design new materials.