(420ab) Electrostatics At the Nanoscale: Anisotropy

The field of electrostatics is thought, by many, to be ‘fully understood’ - however at the nano-scale we continue to discover intriguing and counter-intuitive phenomena.  Here we present the results from a series of recent fundamental studies investigating the electrostatic interactions of non-spherically symmetric nanoparticles (NPs).  We show that electrostatic interactions can be used to control the assemblies of charged nano-objects (of both like and oppositely charged polarities), the important role which curvature can play in patterning charge density on NP surfaces, and how electrostatic interactions can be used to selectively assemble reactive NPs into more complex geometries.  A mixture of both experimental and theoretical evidence will be presented.