METAL–POLYMER
NANOCOMPOSITES
BY
Luigi Nicolais
Gianfranco Carotenuto
As advanced technologies are expanding, the need for novel functional materials significantly increases. Nowadays, materials with a special combination of properties (e.g., magnetic–transparent, conductive–transparent, catalytic– magnetic, etc.) are strictly required. Materials based on nano-sized metals will surely represent an adequate solution to many present and future technological
demands, since they exhibit both novel properties (e.g., plasmon resonance, superparamagnetism, etc.) and unique properties combinations.
Nano-sized metals have special characteristics that can be exploited for a number of advanced functional applications. However, the difficult handling of these incredibly small objects (1–30 nm) has represented a strong limitation to their use. Manipulations of single nanoscopic objects by surface tunneling microscopy (STM), spontaneous self-assembly, and dielectrophoresis are the only available approaches for building functional devices using nano-sized metals. In addition, most of nano-sized metals are very instable: They can aggregate because of the high surface free energy and can be oxidizedcontaminated by air, moisture, SO2, and so on. The embedding of nanoscopic metals into dielectric matrices represents a valid solution to the manipulation and stabilization problems. In the functional field, polymers are particularly interesting as an embedding phase, since they may have a variety of characteristics: They can be an electrical and thermal insulator or conductor, may have a hydrophobic or hydrophilic nature, can be mechanically hard, plastic, or rubbery, and so on. Finally, polymer-embedding is the easiest and most convenient way for nanostructured metals’ stabilization, handling, and use. Polymer-embedded nanostructures are frequently termed nanocomposites
because of their biphasic nature.
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