Passivated metal superlattices self-assembled around a fullerene onion

In modern materials science there are two important topics; fullerene research and quantum dot devices. These areas are considered very promising in the nanoelectronics and nanophotonics technology. In the present work it is shown that this two fields can be combined. It is demonstrated that a fullerene onion, which has a Russian doll structure, can act as a nucleation center for an ordered superlattice of passivated metal nanoparticles produced by growth in toluene vapor. Gold metal cores were passivated with dodecanethiol molecules. There were found fullerene onions ringed by gold particles whose first layers tend to mimic the fullerene structure. However as the distance from the carbon core increases the superlattice tends to recover its standard close packed structure, it is shown that the driving force for the self assembly is the interaction between the carbon atoms in the fullerene 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.