Ou Fung Suong, Shaijumon Manikoth M, Ajayan Pulickel M
Department of Applied Physics, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.
Nano Lett. 2008 Jul;8(7):1853-7. doi: 10.1021/nl080407i. Epub 2008 May 29.
The ultimate goal of nanotechnology is the design and fabrication of nanosize building blocks with multiple functionalities and their assembly into large-scale functional structures that can be controllably manipulated. Here we show that hybrid inorganic multisegmented nanowires, with hydrophobic carbon nanotube tails and hydrophilic metal nanowire heads, allow the assembly and manipulation of massive ordered structures in solution, reminiscent of the organic molecular micellar assembly. Further, properly designed assemblies can be manipulated using external stimuli such as magnetic field and light. The hybrid nanowires can have multiple segments including magnetic components, allowing the assembly to be manipulated by external magnetic field. The assembled structures can also be manipulated by modifying the hydrophobicity of the respective components via chemical functionalization and optical irradiation. This approach brings the concept of environment sensitive self-assembling nanomaterials closer to reality.
纳米技术的最终目标是设计和制造具有多种功能的纳米尺寸构建块，并将它们组装成可进行可控操作的大规模功能结构。在此，我们展示了具有疏水碳纳米管尾部和亲水金属纳米线头部的混合无机多段纳米线，能够在溶液中实现大量有序结构的组装和操控，这让人联想到有机分子胶束组装。此外，经过适当设计的组件可以通过外部刺激（如磁场和光）进行操控。混合纳米线可以有多个包含磁性成分的段，从而使组装体能够被外部磁场操控。通过化学功能化和光照射改变各组分的疏水性，也可以对组装结构进行操控。这种方法使环境敏感型自组装纳米材料的概念更接近现实。
