Versatile assembly of nanoparticles from water-in-oil microemulsion in hybrid nanostructured films

What is it about?

A further insight about the use of water-in-oil microemulsions as soft templates for the interfacial assembly of nanoparticles is provided. In the last decades, water-in-oil microemulsions have been often investigated as soft-templates for the synthesis of nanoparticles. For our case, a novel application of these surfactant-stabilized dispersions included the interfacial assembly of nanoparticles. Concretely, this research focuses on a facile way to form hybrid nanostructured films of ordered nanoparticles, with extension above the micrometer scale. Based on the reported findings, the versatility for the formation of these interfacial assemblies is proven over different surfaces, using different deposition techniques and from different combinations of nanoparticles and oil solvents.

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Why is it important?

The results presented in this manuscript describe the tunability of different nanostructured films under different conditions and combinations of quasi-ternary mixtures, using Aerosol-OT as surfactant. This enforces the knowledge about interfacial assembly of nanoparticles from self-organized surfactant dispersions. Interestingly, this method enables the formation of anisotropic arrangements of spherical nanoparticles smaller than 10 nm, into hierarchically ordered films over the micrometer scale. Scarce studies have focused in facile assembly processes of hierarchical arrangements from mixtures of simple components, such as spherical nanoparticles and surfactants.

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