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Template-directed synthesis

Producing 'perfect' particles

Nature Chemistry volume 2, pages 6–7 (2010)Cite this article

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Synthetic procedures for making nanoparticles often result in samples that contain a range of different particle sizes. By using hollow self-assembled metal–organic spheres as templates, however, it is possible to make silica nanoparticles with uniform shapes and sizes in a precisely controlled fashion.

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Figure 1: A self-assembled metal–organic sphere made from 12 metal centres and 24 bridging organic ligands can be used as a surrounding template for the condensation of tetramethylsiloxane to produce silica nanoparticles of precisely defined size2.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Boris Breiner and Jonathan R. Nitschke are in the Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK.,

    Boris Breiner & Jonathan R. Nitschke

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  1. Boris Breiner
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  2. Jonathan R. Nitschke
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Correspondence to Jonathan R. Nitschke.

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Breiner, B., Nitschke, J. Producing 'perfect' particles. Nature Chem 2, 6–7 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.493

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