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Nanostructured Films based on Self-assembled Inorganic/Organic Hybrid Materials
Prof. Dr. Jochen Gutmann
Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Institut für Physikalische Chemie
Mainz
Prof. Dr. Peter Müller-Buschbaum
Technische Universität München
Dept. E 13
Chair for Experimental Physics IV
Garching
Nanostructured films derived from inorganic/organic hybrid materials are technologically relevant in the field of solar cells. This continued aim of this project is the fabrication and characterisation of complex self-assembled, nanostructured two-dimensional materials (films) with special optical properties. Based on the existing manufacturing methods, the aim is to increase the functionality by the assembly of hierarchical structures. Accordingly, the synthesis will be based on the sol-gel template of ceramic hierarchical structured films made of self-capsulating inorganic/organic hybrid materials, metal oxide nanoparticles, using amphiphile diblock copolymers as a shaping matrix and will be combined with additional structuring on a larger length scale. In addition to the nanostructure, which provides the diblock copolymer, on the length scale up to micrometres a second structure process will be used by means of colloidal templates. Monodispersive polymer particles of the required size will be mixed with the basic solution of the sol-gel process. Upon completion of film preparation in the first step, the resulting high-end nanoparticle arrays will be present in the form of amorphous transition metal oxides. Their shape and arrangement will essentially be determined on a smaller scale by the shaping diblock copolymer (and the preparation conditions) and on a larger scale by by the colloidal template. In a subsequent step the inorganic nanoparticle arrays will be heated to temperatures above 400°C and converted to a crystalline modification.
Each production step will involve characterisation with the aid of the modern scattering technique: grazing incidence ultra small-angle x-ray scattering. This will allow an optimisation of the process parameters since the special scattering technique combines a high statistical relevance of the structural and chemical information with the possibility to analyse their underlying structures.
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