AQUEOUS CHEMICAL GROWTH OF ADVANCED NANOSTRUCTURED METAL OXIDES THIN FILMS

摘要

A novel concept in materials chemistry have been developed as well as an aqueous low temperature thin film growth technique to create a new generation of smart and functional thin film materials, modeled, designed and engineered to match the physical and structural requirements of their applications. This concept, well-sustained by a thermodynamic model monitoring the nucleation, growth and ageing processes of metal oxides through the chemical and electrostatic control of the interfacial free energy allows to monitor the nano/microparticle size, their surface morphology and their orientation on substrates as well as the ability to thermodynamically stabilized metastable crystal phases. This template- and surfactant-free aqueous chemical growth method allows to generate, at large scale and low-cost, advanced metal oxides nano and microparticulate multilayered thin film materials with a complex architecture such as three-dimensional highly oriented crystalline arrays consisting of βFeOOH, αFe_2O_3 or ZnO nanorods, ZnO microrods, microtubes, and nanowires, αCr_2O_3-αFe_2O_3 nanocomposite as well as bio-nanocomposite materials grown at low temperature on various substrates.