Nanoparticles and fabrication thereof
AssigneeThe University of Nottingham
InventorsCesar E. Mendoza, Amir Fahmi, Nabil N. Z. Gindy
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Abstract
Creation of nanoparticle structures in two and three dimensions is advantageous in providing a number of functions such as in relation to catalytic, optical, electronic and magnetic propertied and other actions. Fabrication of such structures poses a considerable technical challenge. A block copolymer pair is used as a matrix to spatially organizes and aligns loaded inorganic materials in the form of nanoparticles. The inorganic precursors are selectively incorporated to a specific block of a di or tri block copolymer so that through solvent evaporation, reduction and mechanical working such as LAOS the orientation and positioning of the block copolymers nanoparticles are obtained into a desired structure.
Claims20
1-34. (canceled)
A method of fabricating a macroscopically ordered hybrid nanostructure material, with a desired morphology, the method comprising choosing a block copolymer (diblock or triblock) combination comprising at least a first copolymer block and a second copolymer block loading one or two of the blocks of the block copolymer combination with an inorganic precursor, at least one of the copolymer blocks having a functional group for protonation or other chemical reaction of the inorganic precursor and subsequently, due to bonding between the copolymer blocks the material undergoes microphase separation and there after an in-situ reduction process, the inorganic precursor forming an aggregate of the elementary inorganic material as a nanoparticle and subjecting the block copolymer combination to mechanical working in order to induce further alignment of the block copolymer combination to define a spatial positional relationship between the copolymer blocks and the nanoparticles within a desired structure.
A nano structure comprising a block copolymer combination (di or triblock) having at least a first copolymer block and a second copolymer block associated by bonding, one or both of the blocks loaded with an inorganic precursor that are incorporated selectively by a protonation or another chemical process to form nanoparticles that result from a reduction process of the precursor, the nanoparticles are arranged by an auto orientation process which is due to the association between the first block copolymer and the second block copolymer to a desired structure by mechanical working.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.