Biotemplate-assisted manufacturing of silica nanowire assemblies

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Cordt Zollfrank
• Subject Area: Experimental Condensed Matter Physics
• Term: from 2004 to 2011
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5428875

This research project combines the molecular bottom-up technique for oriented nucleation of one dimensional ceramic nanowires together with the top-down strategy of patterning mesoscopic materials using soft lithographic methods. Silica nanowires will be anisotropi-cally nucleated form ceramic precursors on the molecular dissolved polysaccharide biotem-plates applying sol-gel routes and diffusion controlled nucleation from solution. The chemical functions as well as the molecular shape of the biopolymers are used for directing structure formation. The chemical groups can be varied from cationic, via polar or hydrophobic to ani-onic. The polysaccharides will be adjusted in respect to the degree of polymerisation which defines the length of the resulting nanowires. The molecular shape can be designed according to the chemical configuration of the bonds between the saccharide units. In a combined pro-cedure, the silica nanowires will be assembled into a nanoscale photonic device using soft lithographic techniques, i.e. capillary force lithography. Advanced techniques will be used to characterise the material (HR-TEM, EDS, AFM, XPS) and optical (ellipsometry, interferome-try, FTIR-microscopy) properties. Potential application of aligned silica nanowires are coher-ent IR-bundles as waveguides for low-loss IR transmission beyond four microns (4 µm).

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 1165: Nanowires and Nanotubes: From Controlled Synthesis to Functions
• Participating Person: Professor Dr.-Ing. Peter Greil