Fabrication and characterization of functional metallic and mixed metal - semiconductor nanocrystal aerogels

近几十年来，由于材料从原子尺度发展到分子尺度并接近扩展固体所表现出的迷人特性，纳米颗粒形式的物质获得了相当大的关注。这些“尺寸可调”的特性有可能影响许多有趣的开发和应用领域。但是，纳米级世界与宏观尺寸的材料的婚姻，可以很容易地操纵和处理，同时保持纳米级的属性，仍然是一个挑战，有待克服。最近已经证明气凝胶提供了这样的机会。因此，该项目旨在阐明基于纳米颗粒衍生气凝胶的材料类别的潜力。这些材料将由胶体溶液中的各种金属和半导体纳米颗粒制成。不断发展的气凝胶是非常轻的，高度多孔的固体，并已被证明具有重要的性质的纳米尺寸的物体，而不是简单的那些各自的散装固体组成。所得的气凝胶材料的特征在于它们的形态和组成，并根据纳米级成分的固有电子性质检查它们的所得性质。利用在该项目中获得的知识，将进一步对气凝胶材料进行再加工，以改善其与光学传感和催化应用相关的性能。

Matter in its nanoparticulate form has gained considerable attention in recent decades due to the fascinating properties exhibited as materials evolve from the atomic scale, through the molecular and approach the extended solid. These “size tunable” properties have the potential to impact on many interesting areas of development and applications. But the marriage of the nanoscale world with that of materials of macro dimensions which can be easily manipulated and processed, whilst maintaining the nanoscale properties, is still a challenge to be surmounted. Aerogels have recently been demonstrated to provide such an opportunity. This project therefore aims at the elucidation of the potential of the class of materials based on nanoparticle derived aerogels. These materials will be produced from a variety of metal and semiconductor nanoparticles available in colloidal solutions. The evolving aerogels are extremely light, highly porous solids and have been demonstrated to possess the important properties of the nanosized objects they consist of instead of simply those of the respective bulk solids. The resulting aerogel materials will be characterized with respect to their morphology and composition and their resulting properties examined in light of the inherent electronic nature of the nanosized constituents. Using the knowledge gained within the project the aerogel materials will be further re-processed in order to achieve improvements in their properties relevant to applications in optical sensing and catalysis.