Related papers: Mesoporous alumina- and silica-based crystalline n…
The controlled self-assembly of thiol stabilized gold nanocrystals in a mediating solvent and confined within mesoporous alumina was probed in situ with small angle x-ray scattering. The evolution of the self-assembly process was controlled…
Nanoporous media exhibit structures significantly smaller than the wavelengths of visible light and can thus act as photonic metamaterials. Their optical functionality is not determined by the properties of the base materials, but rather by…
Double anodization of aluminium microwires in an acid bath yields cylindrical nanoporous alumina with nonbranching radially emanating pores. The obtained nanoporous alumina is a cylindrically anisotropic as well as a radially inhomogeneous…
The optical polarimetry technique is used to explore molecular ordering of nematic liquid crystals 5FPFFPP3 embedded in parallel cylindrical channels of alumina membranes with pore walls covered by a SE-1211 polymer film enhancing normal…
We present high-resolution optical birefringence measurements upon sequential filling of an array of parallel-aligned nanochannels (14~nm mean diameter) with rod-like (acetonitrile) and disc-like (hexafluorobenzene) molecules. We will…
We combine for the first time the properties of ordered mesoporous thin films and complex oxide nanoparticles in the design of new heterostructures, taking advantage of the accessible tridimensional pores network. In this work, we…
Second-order nonlinear optics is the base for a large variety of devices aimed at the active manipulation of light. However, physical principles restrict its occurrence to non-centrosymmetric, anisotropic matter. This significantly limits…
Liquid crystals are synthetic and biological viscoelastic anisotropic soft matter materials that combine liquid fluidity with crystal anisotropy and find use in optical devices, sensor/actuators, lubrication, super-fibers. Frequently…
Physical properties of composite materials can be pre-engineered by controlling their structure and composition at the mesoscale. Yet, approaches for achieving this are limited and rarely scalable. We introduce a new breed of self-assembled…
Internal physical structure can drastically modify the properties of waveguides: photonic crystal fibers are able to confine light inside a hollow air core by Bragg scattering from a periodic array of holes, while metamaterial loaded…
We use hexagonal mesophases made of oil-swollen surfactant-stabilized tubes arranged on a triangular lattice in water and doped with metallic salts as templates for the radiolytic synthesis of nanostructures. The nanostructures formed in…
Nanocrystals of indium oxide (In$_2$O$_3$) with sizes below 10 nm were prepared in alumina matrixes by using a co-pulverization method. The used substrates such as borosilicate glasses or (100) silicon as well as the substrate temperatures…
In this paper the state-of-the-art for exploiting the unique physical and chemical properties of crystalline materials and their possible applications for development of crystalline nanocomposites with the tailored anisotropy were…
Mesoporous silica particles have been synthesized by sol-gel method from tetraethoxysilane (tetraethylorthosilicate, TEOS) and methyltriethoxysilane (MTES), in ethanol and water mixture, at different ratios of the of the silica precursors.…
It is shown that porous spherical particles can be obtained via the freezing of silica nanoparticle aqueous suspensions emulsified in a continuous oil phase. After two freeze-thaw cycles, nanoparticles turn aggregated into flocculated…
A promising approach of designing mesostructured materials with novel physical behavior is to combine unique optical and electronic properties of solid nanoparticles with long-range ordering and facile response of soft matter to weak…
Bio-conjugated nanomaterials play a promising role in the development of novel supramolecular structures, molecular machines, and biosensing devices. In this study, lipid-conjugated gold nanoparticles were synthesized and allowed to form a…
Optical activity is a fundamental phenomenon originating from the chiral nature of crystals and molecules. While intrinsic chiroptical responses of ordinary chiral materials to circularly polarized light are relatively weak, they can be…
Structural order parameters of a smectic liquid crystal confined into the columnar form of porous silicon are studied using neutron scattering and optical spectroscopic techniques. It is shown that both the translational and orientational…
We explore the optical birefringence of the nematic binary mixtures 6CB$_{1-x}$7CB$_x$ ($0~\le~x~\le~1$) imbibed into parallel-aligned nanochannels of mesoporous alumina and silica membranes for channel radii of $3.4~\le~R~\le 21.0$ nm. The…