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Arresting, Fixing, and Separating Dimers Composed of Uniform Silica Colloidal Spheres
Author(s) -
Ibisate M.,
Zou Z.,
Xia Y.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
advanced functional materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.069
H-Index - 322
eISSN - 1616-3028
pISSN - 1616-301X
DOI - 10.1002/adfm.200600228
Subject(s) - materials science , spheres , colloid , dispersity , yield (engineering) , colloidal silica , suspension (topology) , counterion , chemical engineering , nanotechnology , colloidal crystal , chemical physics , composite material , polymer chemistry , organic chemistry , chemistry , ion , coating , physics , mathematics , astronomy , homotopy , pure mathematics , engineering
When fresh tetraethylorthosilicate is introduced into a colloidal suspension of silica spheres, it hydrolyzes and condenses in situ to arrest and fix the dimers resulting from constant collisions between the spheres. By optimizing the experimental parameters (including the length of aging time) and the diameter of the silica spheres, as well as the concentrations of counterions, water, and ammonia, it is possible to routinely produce monodisperse dimers with a yield as high as 50 %. When combined with centrifugation using a density gradient medium, the yield of such dimers could be further increased to 80 %. It is believed that this method will provide a simple and versatile approach to the high‐volume production of dimers from spherical colloids composed of different materials. These dimers may find widespread use in a range of applications such as fabrication of photonic crystals and fundamental studies related to colloidal science.