Ordered '3D-superlattice' oxide nanotubes with highly defined physical and selective chemical contrasts

在过去的几年里，申请人的实验室对自对准TiO2纳米管阵列的电化学生长进行了深入的研究，并在合成和应用方面建立了该领域的世界领先地位。现在有人提议为全新的纳米管结构创建一个工具箱，允许在管壁内预先设计3D纳米尺度约束和主动尺寸控制-特别是：1)形成高度定义的3D超晶格纳米管结构，以强烈修改纳米管壁的物理性质，如电学/光学特性；2)纳米管结构的形成与工程（特定地点）化学对比，为化学结构和纳米通道流过反应器提供空间上，高度定义的（3D）锚定点。这些方法将导致有序的纳米管结构，具有精确定义的属性，可以在纳米管的长度上以纳米级精度分配。管壁可以（局部）修改为：-具有改变的离子，电或光学性质（带隙工程，介材料），纳米级异质结可以构建到管壁中（目标应用，基于太阳能电池结构，插入宿主，光催化或量子尺寸器件）。-具有空间限制的化学对比，这将创建一个平台，以创建局部反应性和建立进一步的分子结构，例如，用于处理具有相应尺寸的生物实体，以及化学性质，包括纳米级流过（单光子）光反应器或光开关器件。设想了将单纳米管作为多功能平台的开发方法，该平台集生物医学定点对接、磁引导和远程载荷释放特性于一体。

Over the past few years, the electrochemical growth of self-aligned TiO2 nanotube arrays has been intensively studied in the laboratory of the applicant, and a world-leading position in this field has been established in synthesis and application. It is now proposed to create a toolbox for entirely novel nanotubular architectures that allow a pre-designed creation of 3D nanoscale confinement and active size control within the tube wall - in particular:1) the formation of highly defined 3D superlattice nanotube structures to strongly modify the physical properties such as the electrical/optical character of the nanotube wall;2) the formation of nanotube structures with engineered (site specific) chemical contrasts to allow spatially, highly defined, (3D) anchoring points for chemical architectures and nano-channel flowthrough reactors.The approaches should lead to ordered nanotube architectures with precisely defined properties that can be allocated with nanoscale precision over the length of the nanotube. Tube walls can be (locally) modified to:- possess altered ionic, electric, or optical properties (band-gap engineering, mesomaterials), and nanoscale heterojunctions can be built into the tube walls (targeting applications, based on solarcell structures, insertion hosts, photocatalysis, or quantum size devices).- have spatially confined chemical contrasts that will create a platform to create local reactivity and build further molecular architectures, for example, for the handling of biological entities with corresponding dimensions, and for chemical properties including nanoscale-flow through (single photon) photoreactors or photoswitchable devices. Approaches are envisaged to develop single nanotubes as multifunctional platform unifying site selective biomedical docking, magnetic guiding and remote payload release properties.