Emergence of hyperuniformity in disordered block-copolymer templates

What is it about?

In this paper, the authors describe a possible route to the fabrication of disordered hyperuniform nanostructures using soft polymeric nanoparticles self-assembled into a widespread network. In the last decades, scientists have discovered that certain extraordinary disordered systems may have an important statistical property, a sort of hidden order called hyperuniformity. Since then, disordered hyperuniform media -recognized as a new state of disordered matter- have been identified in many natural systems, from avian photoreceptor patterns to the seed fluctuations of the early Universe. Thus far, however, fabricating disordered hyperuniform configurations of matter at the nanoscale has remained elusive. In this work, the authors demonstrate the emergence of hyperuniformity into disordered assemblies of polymers used to direct the formation of gold and silver nanostructures. In the next future, harnessing this elegant disorder as a template for structuring several types of materials of interest for photonics and plasmonics might be the key of unexpected findings.

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