Nanoporous gold (NPG) is a brittle, three-dimensional, random structure of Au with nanometer scale open porosity that is made by dealloying Au∕Ag alloys in acid. In this work, Young’s modulus of NPG with controlled porosity variation between 3 and 40nm is determined by mechanical testing of ∼100nm thick, free standing, large-grained, stress-free films of NPG using a buckling-based method [C. Stafford et al., Nat. Mater. 3, 545 (2005)]. Results showing a dramatic rise in the effective Young’s modulus of NPG with decreasing ligament size, especially below 10nm are presented, and possible reasons for this behavior are discussed.
Epitaxial casting of platinum on nanoporous gold membrane molds leads to the formation of nanotubular mesoporous platinum, a new material with high mechanical stability and interesting capillary behavior. For more information on the synthesis and properties of this network of platinum nanotubes see the Communication by J. Erlebacher and co-workers on the following pages.
The influence of nanoscale out-of-plane roughness on the ordering of submicron spheres during evaporative deposition from colloidal suspension was examined using shallow corrugated substrates possessing optical wavelengths and nanoscale amplitude. Under conditions in which spheres were embedded in a liquid layer with thickness on the order of the sphere diameter, it was observed that the spheres overwhelmingly deposited in the valleys of the surface corrugations rather than on their peaks. This behavior persisted to surprisingly shallow corrugation amplitudes, sometimes 100 times smaller than the sphere diameter. An analysis of the capillary forces on the spheres explains this behavior and also yields a critical corrugation amplitude below which a substrate will appear "flat" to depositing spheres. The observation that substrate features significantly smaller than the sphere diameter can influence deposition morphology may lead to simple methods to create large domains of order in colloidal crystals.
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