Figure 3.

(a) TEM image of the repeatedly washed toluene suspension with octapods after fast solvent evaporation. The particles are touching the substrate (carbon support film on Cu grid for TEM) with four pods. Most of the octapods formed a short-ranged square-lattice-like structure. The cartoon embedded in the figure highlights the octapod pattern. (b) HAADF-STEM image showing the self-assembled ballerina network of octapods formed after drop-casting of PMMA-octapod solutions (PMMA at 1% vol) and fast solvent evaporation; the insets evidence the locally regular hexagonal-like structure. Scale bar: 50 nm. (c) Top-view SEM image of the sample in (b) that confirms the ballerina configuration, also showing that the octapods are partially embedded in the polymer. (d) A 45°-tilt-SEM image in which the single protruding pod from each of the embedded octapods can be discerned (framed in yellow dashed lines).