The effect of bending stiffness on scaling laws for the size of colloidal nanosheets

Using coarse-grained Brownian dynamics simulations, we study the relationship between hydrodynamic radius ( R H ) and the lateral size ( L ) of dispersed nanosheets. Our simulation results show that the bending modulus of the nanosheets has a significant impact on the exponent of this power-law relationship between the radius of gyration (and thus R H ) and L . The exponent can vary from 0.17 to 1. This sheds light on the interpretation of dynamic light scattering (DLS) measurements, such that DLS data can capture both nanosheet lateral size and modulus (which is, in turn, affected by nanosheet thickness).

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