(20b) Synthesis Strategies Involving Local Energy Transduction: Optically Oriented Assembly Via Photonic Nanosoldering and Light-Driven Growth of Inorganic Nanomaterials

Careful control over chemistry, composition, and morphology are critical in virtually every materials system, and new methods that enable precise control over the rational assembly of constituent building blocks are vital to the future of nanoscale fabrication efforts. Here, we build upon the results of our work recently published in Nature Communications, describing the light-driven, solution-based assembly of nanoscale building blocks into periodic, one-dimensional heterostructures via a novel photonic nanosoldering process, and present two other recent examples where local energy transduction is used as a strategy to drive chemistry and control the growth of crystalline nanomaterials. Effects of anisotropic radiation pressure, heat transport, and solvent choice on material transformations and nanostructure assembly will be discussed. We believe that these approaches can be generalized to enable the additive manufacturing of nanoscale structures for numerous applications, and we hope that this demonstration will lead to wider use of light-based techniques for the growth and rational assembly of diverse sets of nanomaterials in a variety of different solvent systems.