TEM images of iron oxide nanoparticles synthesized using the Extended LaMer approach.

Binary Solvent Diffusion (BSD) enables the production of new materials with better performance and structure control while reducing costs, enhancing properties and allowing direct integration of devices. It represents a new paradigm for producing functionally designed supercrystals with significant flexibility in control of materials architecture and property as well as direct integration of nanoelectronic devices such as chemical sensors and nanoantennas. The cross-disciplinary, economic and logistic benefits of these new processes promise widespread impact for BSD. News media recently highlighted BSD in the Sandia Lab News, Global Intergold, Albuquerque Journal, and DOE Science News Source. This technology development captured the 2019 Materials Research Society Mid-Career Researcher Award won by the principle investigator Dr. Hongyou Fan. Sandia pioneered the development of this technology with a filed patent and high-profile publications, including an article in Nature Communications. BSD provides a novel strategy for improving performance with low cost by optimizing the design at nanoscale with desirable features for a variety of applications, realizing a profound impact on the world of nanoelectronics and the devices that rely on them.