Nucleation is a dynamic heterogeneous process for solute to assemble and ultimately grow into crystals or amorphous precipitates in solution. Lack of capable analytical methods has been a bottle neck to rationalize the significant gap between theory and experiments. Predictability and active control of the crystal formation is crucially needed in not just high-throughput but high efficiency fashion for fundamental research in i.e. structure determination of biomacromolecules, and practical applications in materials science, pharmaceutical industry among others. This talk will discuss the development of a new analytical toolbox that provides knowledge of early-stage nucleation and subsequent crystal growth at unprecedented time and spatial resolutions. Formation and growth of a single crystal, one at a time, under electrochemical controls and sensing, together with optical imaging will be demonstrated. The approach is founded on our fundamental study on mass transport in single nanopores. Single events indicating the nucleation and single crystal growth of protein insulin on a single nanotip are resolved. The capability to measure the dynamic process in-situ and thus to actively control crystal formation are anticipated to be generalizable to other materials systems.<br/>

Single nucleation and crystal growth by in-situ electrochemical sensing and optical imaging

256th National Meeting (2018)

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