Evaporation-Induced Self-Assembly: Functional Nanostructures Made Easy
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Evaporation-Induced Self-Assembly: Functional Nanostructures Made Easy C. Jeffrey Brinker Abstract The following article is an edited transcript based on the MRS Medalist presentation given by C. Jeffrey Brinker (Sandia National Laboratories and the University of New Mexico) on December 3, 2003, at the Materials Research Society Fall Meeting in Boston. Brinker received the Medal for “his pioneering application of principles of sol-gel chemistry to the self-assembly of functional nanoscale materials.” Nature combines hard and soft materials, often in hierarchical architectures, to obtain synergistic, optimized properties with proven, complex functionalities. Emulating natural designs in robust engineering materials using efficient processing approaches represents a fundamental challenge to materials chemists. This presentation reviews progress on understanding so-called evaporation-induced silica/surfactant self-assembly (EISA) as a simple, general means of preparing porous thin-film nanostructures. Such porous materials are of interest for membranes, low-dielectric-constant (low-k) insulators, and even ‘”nano-valves” that open and close in response to an external stimulus. EISA can also be used to simultaneously organize hydrophilic and hydrophobic precursors into hybrid nanocomposites that are optically or chemically polymerizable, patternable, or adjustable. Keywords: azobenzene, functional materials, nanocomposites, nanocrystals, nanostructures, self-assembly.
Introduction It is certainly a great honor to receive the MRS Medal and to have the opportunity to present some of our research to the MRS audience, which includes a great number of good friends and colleagues. In his MRS Medal lecture, Ivan K. Schuller emphasized that his research incorporated few biological concepts or components (see article by Schuller in this issue of MRS Bulletin). In contrast, our research has been largely inspired by biology. From a materials perspective, biology serves as an excellent model. Biological systems are composed of nanoscale components and exhibit complex functionalities
MRS BULLETIN/SEPTEMBER 2004
that have evolved over millions of years. We look to such natural systems to see if we can emulate some of these proven biological designs and incorporate them into robust engineering materials. Occasionally, we can be so presumptuous as to consider improving upon nature’s designs by nanostructuring and using a broader palette of chemicals. We also want to integrate these nanoscale materials into structures that operate on larger length scales that allow electrical, optical, or fluidic addressability and interrogation. This has directed our research largely toward making thin films.
When we look at natural materials, we see that nature often combines multiple hard and soft materials in hierarchical designs to obtain synergistic and often optimized properties or combinations of properties. This is an interesting aspect of biology that we can try to mimic in engineering materials. In constructing such composite structures,
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