Controlling Interparticle Spacing among Metal Nanoparticles through Metal-Catalyzed Decomposition of Surrounding Polymer Matrix

摘要

Nanocomposites containing inorganic nanoparticles have been of great interest in recent years due to their potential application for novel electronic,optical,and magnetic devices.The size of the nanoparticles is one of the key parameters that determine the properties of the nanocomposites.Additionally,physical interactions among nanoparticles,such as electric and magnetic dipole interactions,are recognized to be important in the next generation nano-devices,including plasmon waveguides,biosensors,and ultrahigh density data storage media.Since the physical interactions depend on both the particle size and interparticle spacing,precise control over the spacing under a fixed particle size is an important challenge for understanding the physical interactions in the nanocomposite systems.However,previous attempts at control over microstructures of the nanocomposites did not enable one to independently control the interparticle spacing and the nanoparticle size.