Related papers: Mesoporous alumina- and silica-based crystalline n…
New materials aim at exploiting the great control of living organisms over molecular architectures and minerals. Optical biomimetics has been widely developed by microengineering, leading to photonic components with order resembling those…
Nanochannels with high width-to-height aspect ratios are desirable for many applications, particularly those requiring optical access, but remain challenging to fabricate. In this work, the direct laser writing of such channels between…
The optical birefringence of liquid n-hexane condensed in an array of parallel silica channels of 7nm diameter and 400 micrometer length is studied as a function of filling of the channels via the vapor phase. By an analysis with the…
Photonic metamaterials with properties unattainable in base materials are already beginning to revolutionize optical component design. However, their exceptional characteristics are often static, as artificially engineered into the material…
The existence of photonic stop bands in the self-assembled arrangement of pores in porous anodic alumina structures is investigated by means of rigorous 2D finite- difference time-domain calculations. Self-assembled porous anodic alumina…
We present a novel, continuous-feed nanocasting procedure for the synthesis of bismuth nanowire structures embedded in the pores of a mesoporous silica template. The immobilization of a bismuth salt inside the silica template from a diluted…
A very efficient method for the calculation of the effective optical response of nano-structured composite systems allows the design of metamaterials tailored for specific optical polarization properties. We use our method to design 2D…
Aluminum, as a metallic material for plasmonics, is of great interest because it extends the applications of surface plasmon resonance into the ultraviolet (UV) region and excels noble metals in the natural abundance, cost and compatibility…
A facile route to prepare the nanotubes from rod-like mesogens dissolved in typical organic solvents is reported. For selected types of chiral rod-like molecules, both enantiomers as well as the racemic mixtures formed the nanotubes by slow…
The ordering of nanoparticles into predetermined configurations is of importance to the design of advanced technologies. In this work, we moderate the surface anchoring against the bulk elasticity of liquid crystals to dynamically shape…
Responsiveness to multiple stimuli and adaptivity are paramount for designing smart multifunctional materials. In soft, partially ordered systems, these features can often be achieved via self-assembly, allowing for the combination of…
We explore the nematic ordering of the rod-like liquid crystals 5CB and 6CB, embedded into parallel-aligned nanochannels in mesoporous silicon and silica membranes as a function of mean channel radius (4.7<=R <=8.3 nm), and thus geometrical…
Advanced photonic nanostructures have enabled the maximization of synthetic chiroptic activities. The unique structuring of these building blocks has empowered chiral selective interactions with electromagnetic waves in plasmonic structures…
The development of synthetic microswimmers has advanced our understanding of the fundamental self-propelled mechanisms of living systems. However, there are scarce studies at the microscale within highly structured anisotropic media, such…
In this manuscript, we propose a simple and versatile methodology to design nanosystems based on biocompatible and multicomponent mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) for infection management. This strategy relies on the combination of…
Self-assembly of nanoparticles can enable composites with pre-designed properties but remains challenged by reproducing structural diversity of atomic and molecular crystals. We combine anisotropic elastic and weakly screened electrostatic…
In this article we demonstrate that a grating fabricated through nanoscale volumetric crosslinking of a liquid crystalline polymer enables remote polarization control over the diffracted channels. This functionality is a consequence of the…
Metasurfaces have been extensively engineered to produce a wide range of optical phenomena, allowing unprecedented control over the propagation of light. However, they are generally designed as single-purpose devices without a modifiable…
Monodisperse rod-like colloidal particles are known for spontaneously forming both nematic and smectic liquid crystal phases, but their self-assembly was typically exploited from the fundamental soft condensed matter physics perspective.…
After providing a concise overview on quasicrystals and their discovery more than a quarter of a century ago, I consider the unexpected interplay between nanotechnology and quasiperiodic crystals. Of particular relevance are efforts to…