The organization of inorganic nanostructures within self-assembled organic or biological templates is receiving the attention of scientists interested in developing functional hybrid materials. Previous efforts have concentrated on using such scaffolds to spatially arrange nanoscopic elements as a strategy for tailoring the electrical, magnetic or photonic properties of the material. Recent theoretical arguments have suggested that synergistic interactions between self-organizing particles and a self-assembling matrix material can lead to hierarchically ordered structures. Here we show that mixtures of diblock copolymers and either cadmium selenide- or ferritin-based nanoparticles exhibit cooperative, coupled self-assembly on the nanoscale. In thin films, the copolymers assemble into cylindrical domains, which dictate the spatial distribution of the nanoparticles; segregation of the particles to the interfaces mediates interfacial interactions and orients the copolymer domains normal to the surface, even when one of the blocks is strongly attracted to the substrate. Organization of both the polymeric and particulate entities is thus achieved without the use of external fields, opening a simple and general route for fabrication of nanostructured materials with hierarchical order.

中文翻译：

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纳米粒子/共聚物混合物的自导向自组装

自组装有机或生物模板内无机纳米结构的组织正在受到对开发功能性混合材料感兴趣的科学家的关注。以前的努力集中在使用这种支架在空间上排列纳米级元素，作为定制材料的电、磁或光子特性的策略。最近的理论争论表明，自组织粒子和自组装基质材料之间的协同相互作用可以导致分层有序的结构。在这里，我们展示了二嵌段共聚物和硒化镉或铁蛋白基纳米粒子的混合物在纳米尺度上表现出协同的、耦合的自组装。在薄膜中，共聚物组装成圆柱形区域，这决定了纳米颗粒的空间分布；颗粒与界面的分离介导了界面相互作用并使共聚物域垂直于表面取向，即使当其中一个嵌段被强烈吸引到基材上时也是如此。因此，在不使用外部场的情况下实现了聚合物和颗粒实体的组织，为制造具有分级顺序的纳米结构材料开辟了一条简单而通用的途径。