Stabilizing in-transition phases of superlattices through shape control of silver nanocrystals
- Yasutaka Nagaoka
- Timothy C. Moore
- Arseniy Epishin
- Zhenyang Liu
- Tong Cai
- Na Jin
- Ken Seungmin Hong
- Peter Saghy
- Ankai Wang
- Yuzi Liu
- Sooyeon Hwang
- Yusong Bai
- Shengli Zou
- Ruipeng Li
- Stephanie Reich
- Sharon C. Glotzer
- Ou Chen
2026-05-28
In nanoscale assemblies, observations of structures in the transition pathways between high-symmetry lattices are rare because of the inherent instability of the intermediate phases. We report that silver nanocrystals with shapes similar to truncated octahedra (mecons) self-assemble into superlattices that are stable and resemble a previously unobserved phase that bridges face-centered and body-centered cubic structures along the Nishiyama-Wassermann martensitic pathway. These superlattices exhibited high structural purity and stability and created a robust and tunable dissymmetric phase landscape. Notably, light-matter coupling emerged in these silver nanocrystal superlattices through plasmon-photon hybridization at the quantum level.