Fig. 4. Quantifying links in thermoreversible nanocrystal assembly.

(A) Deconvolution of visible absorption spectra of a flowing nanocrystal dispersion with [TBACl] = 200 mM: total absorbance of free and bound Co²⁺ complexes (solid green), deconvoluted contribution from free Co²⁺ complexes (solid purple), and from bound Co²⁺ complexes (dashed black). The absorption background due to TL-ITO was subtracted before deconvolution. (B) Fraction of bound Co²⁺ complexes determined by deconvolution. Gel points are estimated by extrapolating the trendlines to the gelation temperatures obtained from Fig. 3B. (C) van’t Hoff analysis of the equilibrium constant K_eq based on concentrations extracted from the spectroscopic deconvolution.