Polymer-mediated particle coarsening within hollow silica shell nanoreactors
AssigneeNorthwestern University
InventorsChad A. Mirkin, Vinayak P. Dravid, Liban Jibril
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Abstract
A method of forming a nanoparticle can include admixing an aqueous solution into an oil-phase to thereby form an emulsion of droplets of the aqueous solution in the oil phase, the aqueous solution comprising a nanostructure precursor and a polymer, adding a silane precursor and catalyst to form a silica shell around each of the droplets to nanoreactors; annealing at a first temperature below the decomposition temperature of the polymer to aggregate the nanostructure precursor within the nanoreactor; and annealing at a second temperature above the decomposition temperature of the polymer to convert the aggregated nanostructure precursor to the nanostructure and decompose the polymer.
Claims17
A method of forming nanostructures, comprising:
- admixing an aqueous solution into an oil-phase to thereby form an emulsion of droplets of the aqueous solution in the oil phase, the aqueous solution comprising a nanostructure precursor and a polymer;
- adding a silane precursor and catalyst to the emulsion under conditions sufficient to form a silica shell around each of the droplets to thereby form nanoreactors, each comprised of a hollow silica shell surrounding a core comprising the aqueous solution;
- annealing the nanoreactors at a first temperature below the decomposition temperature of the polymer to aggregate the nanostructure precursor within each of the nanoreactors;
- and
- annealing the nanoreactors at a second temperature above the decomposition temperature of the polymer to convert the aggregated nanostructure precursor to the nanostructure and decompose the polymer and thereby form the nanostructure within the hollow silica shell.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.