Solid state self-assembly of nanocheckerboards

The authors introduce an emergent method to fabricate a few-nanometer-size columnar superlattice with a checkerboard pattern in inorganic spinels by harnessing the Jahn-Teller structural distortion. Transmission electron microscope images reveal that the fundamental building blocks are two types of long nanorods with the ∼4×4×70nm3 size, which are alternatively stacked in a way that the cross sectional and side views show checkerboard and herringbone patterns, respectively. The authors discuss that the strain induced by the Jahn-Teller distortion causes this peculiar self-assembled nanostructure in the coherent mixture of two spinel phases. This pure solid state self-assembly can be implemented to fabricate heterogeneous nanostructures with practical functionalities.