In this podcast episode, MRS Bulletin’s Laura Leay interviews Yaroslava Yingling and Joseph Tracy from North Carolina State University about their study on iron oxide colloidal nanoparticles (NPs) coated in oleylamine ligands. By combining experimental work with molecular simulations, their research group determined how to optimize ethanol solvent-mediated ligand stripping in order to control the functionality of the NPs. This work was published in a recent issue of Advanced Materials Interfaces.