Polymers nanoscale applications

Nanocomposites can be defined as combinations of different materials where at least one of the components is distributed on the nanoscale. Nanocomposite particles are particles with at least one component being structured on the nanoscale. Several types of inorganic materials have been combined with polymer materials to produce nanocomposite particles, for example, titanium dioxide, clay platelets such as laponite (LRD) and montmorillonite (MMT), calcium carbonate and iron oxides. In general, beneficial properties of the composite are expected, mainly in the area of mechanical properties, barrier properties and dispersion properties (better dispersion of the inorganic particles in the polymer matrix). Many research groups are working on incorporation of clay platelets either intercalated or (partially) exfoliated in polymer materials. Application areas of the anticipated materials are often in coatings, adhesives, films for barrier properties and plastics. 

Many other opportunities exist due to the enormous flexibility of the preparative method, and the ability to incorporate many different species. Very recently, a great deal of work has been published concerning methods of producing these materials with specific physical forms, such as spheres, discs and fibres. Such possibilities will pave the way to new application areas such as molecular wires, where the silica fibre acts as an insulator, and the inside of the pore is filled with a metal or indeed a conducting polymer, such that nanoscale wires and electronic devices can be fabricated. Initial work on the production of highly porous electrodes has already been successfully carried out, and the extension to uni-directional bundles of wires will no doubt soon follow. 

Laser ablation of polymer films has been extensively investigated, both for application to their surface modification and thin-film deposition and for elucidation of the mechanism [15]. Dopant-induced laser ablation of polymer films has also been investigated [16]. In this technique ablation is induced by excitation not of the target polymer film itself but of a small amount of the photosensitizer doped in the polymer film. When dye molecules are doped site-selectively into the nanoscale microdomain structures of diblock copolymer films, dopant-induced laser ablation is expected to create a change in the morphology of nanoscale structures on the polymer surface. 

Hybrid polymer silica nanocomposites formed from various combinations of silicon alkoxides and polymers to create a nanoscale admixture of silica and organic polymers constitute a class of composite materials with combined properties of polymers and ceramics. They are finding increasing applications in protective coatings (Figure 7.1), optical devices, photonics, sensors and catalysis.1... 

The nanoreplication of functional nanostructures has also been achieved through other block copolymer-templated structures. De Boer et al. [35] applied honeycomb-structured films of rod-coil block copolymer as patterned templates to replicate hexagonally packed arrays of aluminum cups on the substrate surfaces (Fig. 10b). Nguyen et al. [237] embedded semiconducting polymers in the channels of oriented hexagonal nanoporous silica and used this nanoscale architecture to control the energy transfer for potential optoelectronic applications. 

Hybrid Inorganic/Organic Polymers with Nanoscale Building Blocks Precursors, Processing, Properties and Applications , K.-H. Haas and K. Rose, Rev. Adv. Mater. Sci. 5, 47-52 (2003). 

Mechanically interlocked molecular compounds, including catenanes, rotax-anes, and carceplex, are constituted of molecules composed of two or more components that cannot be separated from each other [95-98]. The development of strategy for achieving controlled self-assembling systems by non-covalent interaction enables one to prepare such attractive compounds for applications in nanoscale molecular devices. The dithiafulvene derivatives are effective electron donors, which are good candidates to form those supramolecular systems with appropriate acceptors by virtue of intermolec-ular CT interactions. In this chapter, dithiafulvene polymers forming rotax-ane structures are especially described. 

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