Supercrystals consist of ordered arrays of nanocrystals in 3D or 2D, presenting periodicity in terms of the positions and chemical compositions of the building blocks. Supercrystals can be achieved by assembling high-quality nanocrystals that are synthesized via a wet-chemical approach. A replacement of the traditional spherical nanocrystals with non-spherical building blocks could offer some unique characteristics due to the anisotropic nature when the orientations of the building blocks are also introduced into the assembly. Meanwhile, the packing density of the non-spherical nanocrystal-based supercrystals will be different from that of traditional packing efficiencies with spherical units. These novel supercrystals could exhibit not only the building block size- and shape-dependent properties but also new collective properties that emerge from the optical and electronic interactions among the non-spherical nanocrystals. Furthermore, a successful fabrication and understanding of the superstructures of supercrystals assembled from non-spherical NCs could result in a rational design to build up novel devices with specific nano-architecture and meet the demands of various novel applications. Superstructures of assemblies containing numerous non-spherical building block systems such as In₂O₃, PbS, PbSe, PbTe, Pt₃Ni, Pt₃Cu_2, and Pt have been studied/reviewed.

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NanoToday 5 (5) 390-411,(2010).   10.1016/j.nantod.2010.08.011