Another nanobrick in the wall

Nanocubes could make polymer chemistry child’s play <br>© PhotoDisc <br>

Chemists make the world’s smallest building blocks.

US researchers have made the world’s smallest building blocks. The nanocubes are just a millionth of a millimetre (a nanometre) across1. Stacked like bricks, they could make up a range of materials with useful properties such as light emission or electrical conduction.

Many chemists are currently trying to develop molecular-scale construction kits in which the individual components are single molecules to provide the polymers of the future. Conventional polymers are chainlike molecules. These entangle to form plastics ranging from soft polyethylene to hard polystyrene.

Chemists can exert some influence over the properties of the bulk plastic by altering the shape and composition of the molecular chains. But they have little control over how the chains weave together.

Richard Laine and colleagues at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor want to replace chains with bricks. Their molecular units are silicon and oxygen atoms linked into a cube-shaped framework with a silicon at each corner.

The researchers connect the cubes by their corners – each corner silicon has a ’spare’ bond to which other chemical groups can be attached.

Similar materials have been prepared previously using corner linkers made from chainlike hydrocarbons. Like cubic octupi with eight arms, these are of limited practical value because they decompose quite easily when heated, and form messy glass-like solids instead of well-ordered crystals with the cubes stacked precisely.

Laine’s team address this problem by replacing the loose, chain-like linker arms with stiff, stubby arms: compact aromatic molecules derived from benzene. These should make the resulting materials more stable and rigid.

For example, the nanocubes make a curable resin that can withstand heating above 500 oC in air. And by appending different molecular groups to the short benzene-like arms, the researchers have made a material that conducts electricity, which might be used in polymer-based light-emitting diodes for display devices. A third kind of cubic molecule emits green light and could be useful in sensors and displays.

References

  1. Tamaki, R., Tamaki, Y., Asuncion, M. Z., Choi, J. & Laine, R. M. Octa(aminophenyl)silsesquioxane as a nanoconstruction site. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 123, 12416 – 12417, (2001).

Media Contact

PHILIP BALL © Nature News Service

All latest news from the category: Life Sciences and Chemistry

Articles and reports from the Life Sciences and chemistry area deal with applied and basic research into modern biology, chemistry and human medicine.

Valuable information can be found on a range of life sciences fields including bacteriology, biochemistry, bionics, bioinformatics, biophysics, biotechnology, genetics, geobotany, human biology, marine biology, microbiology, molecular biology, cellular biology, zoology, bioinorganic chemistry, microchemistry and environmental chemistry.

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

Results for control of pollutants in water

Brazilian scientists tested a simple and sustainable method for monitoring and degrading a mixture of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, compounds present in fossil fuels and industrial waste. An article published in the journal Catalysis…

A tandem approach for better solar cells

Perovskite-based solar cells were first proved in 2009 to have excellent light-absorbing properties of methylammonium lead bromide and methylammonium lead iodide, collectively referred to as lead halide perovskites or, more…

The behavior of ant queens is shaped by their social environment

Specialization of ant queens as mere egg-layers is reversible / Queen behavioral specialization is initiated and maintained by the presence of workers. The queens in colonies of social insects, such…

Partners & Sponsors