Nanoparticle Alignment: Quantized Grain Boundary States Promote Nanoparticle Alignment During Imperfect Oriented Attachment (Small 29/2020)

In article number 2001423, Selim Elhadj and co-workers offer new insights into the crystallographic alignment of nanoparticles during self-assembly and aggregation. The salient details reveal that grain boundaries between small particles (0–10 nm) rapidly disintegrate via deformation processes due to the quantization of energetically preferred grain boundary structures and the existence of small barriers associated with the motion of grain boundary dislocations to nearby surfaces.