Synthesis and dipolar assembly of cobalt-tipped CdSe CdS nanorods

This dissertation contains four chapters with advances relevant to the fields of nanoparticle synthesis and nanoparticle self-assembly. Linear nanoparticle assemblies are challenging to achieve due to the need to impart functionality to colloids such that (typically) only two sites are active per particle. An emerging idea in the literature which addresses this challenge is to consider linear assemblies of inorganic nanoparticles as colloidal analogs to traditional polymers. Chapter 1 is a review which emphasizes control over degree of polymerization, architecture, and composition for colloidal polymers, and seminal examples are highlighted.;The second chapter is centered on a novel methodology to install ferromagnetic cobalt domains onto core shell, "CdSe CdS" nanorods. The key advance from this work was the development of a methodology to separate nanorod activation from deposition of ferromagnetic cobalt domains onto semiconductor nanorods. Cobalt nanoparticle tips were then selectively oxidized to form CoxOy-tipped nanorods, which were a novel class of p-n type nanomaterials achieved over a total of five synthetic steps.;The third chapter describes the synthesis of CoNP-tipped nanorods with a single, strongly dipolar, ferromagnetic CoNP-tip per nanorod. The key synthetic advance was the ability to activate a single terminus per nanorod without activation of lateral nanorod facets, which was vital in achieving these larger, dipolar, cobalt tips (rather than lateral decoration of cobalt onto nanorod lateral facets). These dipolar "matchstick" CoNP-tipped nanorods then spontaneously formed linear assemblies carrying nanorod side chains as pendant functionality.;The fourth chapter is centered on the self-assembly of dipolar matchstick cobalt-tipped nanorods to form colloidal (co)polymers reminiscent of traditional bottlebrush polymers, with controlled composition and phase behavior on carbon surfaces. Nanorod side chain length was found to significantly impact self-assembly of these colloidal analogs of bottlebrush copolymers, which provided a means of tuning surface wetting and phase behavior of nanoparticle thin films. This work also contained first demonstration of colloidal copolymers (both segmented and statistical) from the dipolar assembly of magnetic nanoparticles. We then demonstrated, for the first time, that a colloidal copolymer with segmented composition can form a mesoscopic phase separated morphology which is similar to that observed for traditional block copolymers.