Recently, the iChEM researcher, Prof. An-gang Dong from the College of Chemistry, Fudan University (FDU), had collaboration with Prof. Jian-hua Hu and Prof. Dong-fu Yang from the College of Polymer Science, which achieved significant progress in the preparation of novel nano-superlattices material and its application in lithium battery. On March 3^rd, 2015 their work was published in Nature Communications with topic of Fabrication of three-dimensionally interconnected nanoparticle superlattices and their lithium-ion storage properties.

Nano-superlattices consisting of monodisperse nanoparticles represent a new class of condensed materials, which is a cutting-edge research in the field of chemical materials. Despite recent advances in self-assembly of nano-superlattices, the constituent materials have been limited to those that are attainable as monodisperse nanoparticle. In addition, self-assembled nano-superlattices are generally weakly coupled due to the surface-coating ligands. The team fully took the advantage of their proficiency in both nano-synthesis and self-assembly to propose a novel pathway for nano-superlattices preparation, showing that mesoporous carbon frameworks derived from self-assembled supercrystals (e.g. Fe₃O₄) can be used as a robust matrix for the growth of nano-superlattices with diverse compositions. The resulting interconnected nano-superlattices embedded in a carbon matrix are particularly suitable for energy storage applications. They also recognized that the highly ordered structure of nano-superlattices, made an evolution in microstructure and morphology of nanocrystals occuring in lithium / lithium-off process, which has remarkable significance in basic science.

The research was funded by Fudan University, National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), and National Basic Research Program of China. (973 program)