Abstract
Inorganic nanocomposites have characteristic structures that feature expanded interfaces, quantum effects, and resistance to crack propagation. These structures are promising for the improvement of many materials including thermoelectric materials, photocatalysts, and structural materials. Precise control of the inorganic nanocomposites’ morphology, size, and chemical composition is very important for these applications. Here, we present a novel fabrication method to control the structures of inorganic nanocomposites by means of a self-assembled block copolymer template. Different metal complexes were selectively introduced into specific polymer blocks of the block copolymer, and subsequent removal of the block copolymer template by oxygen plasma treatment produced hexagonally packed porous structures. In contrast, calcination removal of the block copolymer template yielded nanocomposites consisting of metallic spheres in a matrix of a metal oxide. These results demonstrate that different nanostructures can be created by selective use of processes to remove the block copolymer templates. The simple process of first mixing block copolymers and magnetic nanomaterial precursors and then subsequently removing the block copolymer template enables structural control of magnetic nanomaterials, which will facilitate their applicability in patterned media, including next-generation perpendicular magnetic recording media.
Highlights
Inorganic nanocomposites have characteristic structures that feature expanded interfaces, quantum effects, and restrained crack propagation
Metal complexes were selectively introduced into a specific polymer block of the block copolymer, and subsequent removal of the block copolymer template by oxygen plasma treatment produced hexagonally packed porous structures
A dark-field Scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) image of the local structure of a spincoated sample shows a spherical morphology with bright areas in the image corresponding to electron-dense spheres, suggesting that Pt(acac)2 was selectively introduced into the spherical P4VP block
Summary
Inorganic nanocomposites have characteristic structures that feature expanded interfaces, quantum effects, and restrained crack propagation. These structures are promising for the improvement of many materials including thermoelectric materials [1,2,3,4,5], photocatalysts [6,7,8,9,10], and structural materials with excellent mechanical properties [11,12,13,14,15,16]. Many studies have focused on the synthesis of inorganic nanostructures of porous materials [32,33,34], nanoparticles [35,36,37], and cylinder arrays [38] formed from block copolymer templates. The synthesis of inorganic nanocomposites by templating block copolymers is not as well studied [39]
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