Controlling the Architecture of Nanocrystals

Roland Piquepaille writes "Until now, the fabrication of nanocrystals implied to inject various chemicals into heated solutions. As the solution concentration changed during the reaction, the process was hard to control and the results were somewhat unexpected. But now, researchers at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) have found an easy way to control the architecture of nanocrystals. They simply use electricity to control the nanocrystals shapes in a reproducible way. This opens the door to new applications such as using ferromagnetic nanocrystals as components in ultra high-density storage media. More details and references are available in this overview. It also includes illustrations of different shapes of nanocrystals obtained by applying different voltages."