Figure 9.

Pathways to vesicle formation and nanocrystal incorporation that depend on solvent vapor annealing and nanocrystal size. The diameter d_max, includes the fully extended length of the alkanethiol ligands. DOPC lipid adopts the inverted hexagonal phase in the anhydrous state after exposure to chloroform, similar to the lipid's behavior presence of dodecane at low water content.⁵¹ As predicted by Wi,¹² Au nanocrystals less than 6 nm incorporate into DOPC vesicle bilayers (with chloroform annealing), whereas nanocrystals larger than 6 nm de-stabilize DOPC bilayers to form lipid particles with many inter-lamellar attachments. The dodecanethiol-coated 1.8 nm diameter nanocrystals have a diameter of about 5.2 nm including the ligand.