Self-Assembled Oxide Films

Mark Henderson, Adrian Hawley, David King, Adrian Rennie ^‡ , Alain Gibaud ^¥ , Xiaoheng Liu ^ƒ and John White

^‡ Uppsala University, The Studsvik Neutron Research Laboratory, S-611 82 Nyköping, Sweden

^¥ Laboratoire de Physique De l'etat Condense UMR - CNRS n° 6087 Faculté Sciences et technique, Le Mans

^ƒ Material Chemistry Laboratory, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210094 P R China

The air-water interface offers a useful environment for the preparation of highly ordered metalloid and metal oxide films including titania ^{1 2} zirconia and silica. Our focus is the rational design of hybrid metal oxide-organic composite films at this interface via a self-assembly route whereby a surfactant is used to direct the nucleation, growth and morphology of a thin metal or metalloid oxide film at the air-water interface.  In general, these composite materials, which have mesoscopic order (20-100 Å), may offer pore diameters greater than those of conventional materials such as zeolites and clays and are promising materials for catalysis.  Self-assembly of an inorganic-organic hybrid at the air-water interface is illustrated by the preparation of mesostructured silica templated by the alkyl trimethylammonium halide surfactant C₁₆TAX (X= Cl, Br). ^{3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10}    Recently we applied energy dispersive reflectometry using x-rays to monitor the rapid development of TiO₂-surfactant laminae for which surface layer ordering was significant enough to produce Bragg diffraction at the air-water interface. It is these types of films that we examine at a fine time resolution to display intermediate stages in the film growth.

A titania-based film self-assembled at the air-water interface

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