Letter abstract
Nature Materials 7, 718 - 722 (2008)
Published online: 20 July 2008 | doi:10.1038/nmat2232
Subject Categories: Nanoscale materials | Design synthesis and processing
Water-soluble organo-silica hybrid nanowires
Jiayin Yuan1, Youyong Xu1, Andreas Walther1, Sreenath Bolisetty2, Manuela Schumacher1, Holger Schmalz1, Matthias Ballauff2,3 & Axel H. E. Müller1,3
There has been growing interest in the past decade in one-dimensional (1D) nanostructures, such as nanowires, nanotubes or nanorods, owing to their size-dependent optical and electronic properties and their potential application as building blocks, interconnects and functional components for assembling nanodevices1, 2. Significant progress has been made; however, the strict control of the distinctive geometry at extremely small size for 1D structures remains a great challenge in this field. The anisotropic nature of cylindrical polymer brushes has been applied to template 1D nanostructured materials, such as metal, semiconductor or magnetic nanowires3, 4, 5, 6. Here, by constructing the cylindrical polymer brushes themselves with a precursor-containing monomer, we successfully synthesized hybrid nanowires with a silsesquioxane core and a shell made up from oligo(ethylene glycol) methacrylate units, which are soluble in water and many organic solvents. The length and diameter of these rigid wires are tunable by the degrees of polymerization of both the backbone and the side chain. They show lyotropic liquid-crystalline behaviour and can be pyrolysed to silica nanowires. This approach provides a route to the controlled fabrication of inorganic or hybrid silica nanostructures by living polymerization techniques.
- Makromolekulare Chemie II, Universität Bayreuth, D-95440 Bayreuth, Germany
- Physikalische Chemie I, Universität Bayreuth, D-95440 Bayreuth, Germany
- Bayreuther Institut für Kolloide und Grenzflächen, Universität Bayreuth, D-95440 Bayreuth, Germany
Correspondence to: Axel H. E. Müller1,3 e-mail: axel.mueller@uni-bayreuth.de
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