SMALL PARTICLES WITH LARGE PERSPECTIVES: III. HOW TO COMBINE?

The closing article of the series is concerned with the problems of the creation of nanostructures with more or less sophisticated architecture. If the nanoparticles themselves are mainly of academic interest, their assemblies can be used as the working elements of future devices. Such assemblies perform completely new and unexpected properties, which can not be treated as the simple sum of the their constituent particles. Nanoparticles can be organized into the assembly by various ways – by means of electrostatic, capillary, Van-der-Vaalce and other interactions. Of the special interest is the self-assembly, being known as an attribute of the living matter, but possible in the more primitive form in the inorganic systems, as it is demonstrated with the examples of chemical assemblage and template synthesis. The role of the biomolecules and effects of biospecific recognition in the nanostructures formation is discussed, as well as the possibilities to arrange nanoparticles in the desired order using the atomic-force microscopes.