Passivated metal superlattices self-assembled around a fullerene onion

In modern materials science there are two important topics; fullerene resea rch and quantum dot devices. These areas are considered very promising in t he nanoelectronics and nanophotonics technology. In the present work it is shown that this two fields can be combined. It is demonstrated that a fulle rene onion, which has a Russian doll structure, can act as a nucleation cen ter for an ordered superlattice of passivated metal nanoparticles produced by growth in toluene vapor. Gold metal cores were passivated with dodecanet hiol molecules. There were found fullerene onions ringed by gold particles whose first layers tend to mimic the fullerene structure. However as the di stance from the carbon core increases the superlattice tends to recover its standard close packed structure, it is shown that the driving force for th e self assembly is the interaction between the carbon atoms in the fulleren e and the terminal CH3 groups of the n-alkyl thiol molecules. This appears to be a promising method for the fabrication of metal-coated fullerenes for practical applications.