Scientists at Cornell report the worlds smallest anvil pressure cell allowing them to study uniaxial compression of molecular bundles.
Assemblies of nanocrystals present many interesting scientific challenges at the confluence of hard and soft matter physics. Our work demonstrates, for the first time, opportunities introduced by the use of nanocrystal superlattice as an experimental platform to probe molecular bundles under uniaxial compression. We used the assembly itself as a nanoscale pressure cell to probe molecular bundles under uniaxial compression. Our manuscript reports a novel method to uniaxially compress molecules within specific confined spaces of a nanocrystal superlattice. We combined X-ray scattering experiments with density functional theory simulations demonstrate our method to probe the elastic force of single molecule as a function of chain length. We see this methodology as an exciting new opportunity to investigate structure-function relationships of molecules under uniaxial compression.
Congratulations Kaifu!