Summary: Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 1997
Microscopic patterning of
orientated mesoscopic
silica through guided growth
M. Trau*k, N. Yaok, E. Kim§, Y. Xia§, G. M. Whitesides§
& I. A. Aksay*
* Department of Chemical Engineering and Princeton Materials Institute,
Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544-5263, USA
§ Department of Chemistry, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
02138-2902, USA
k These authors contributed equally to this work
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The supramolecular assembly of surfactant molecules at a solid­
liquid interface can produce tubular structures with diameters of
around 10 nm (refs 1­4), which can be used for the templated
polymerization of mesoporoussilica thin films3­5
. The orientation
of the tubules depends primarily on the nature of the substrate­
surfactant interaction. These nanostructured films hold much
promise for applications such as their use as orientated nano-

Source: Aksay, Ilhan A. - Department of Chemical Engineering, Princeton University

Collections: Materials Science