Block copolymer micellar thin films as templates for the production of tunable inorganic nanocluster arrays and their applications

摘要

In the past decade, the use of self-assembling systems for the fabrication of materials on the nanometer scale has been an active area of research. Block copolymer thin films are a subclass of' self-assembling systems that have received considerable attention due to their intrinsic nanometer feature size, their ease of synthesis, and their rich phase behavior. While block copolymer thin films have been utilized in a variety of applications, including the nanofabrication of substrates, the modification of surface properties, and the synthesis of photonic structures, this thesis will focus on using the self-assembling properties of block copolymer thin films to synthesize inorganic nanocluster arrays. These arrays have a wide range of possible applications in fields such as catalysis, data storage, and nanofabrication. This thesis demonstrates a general route for using block copolymer micellar thin films as templates to synthesize tunable inorganic nanocluster arrays. The approach utilized amphiphilic block copolymers, such as poly(styrene-block-acrylic acid) and poly(styrene-block-2-vinylpyridine), to create micelles in solution that could be selectively loaded with metal ions and deposited onto a substrate to create quasi-hexagonal arrays of nanoclusters.