1] i-LAB and Nano-Bionics Division, Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech & Nano-Bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou 215123, China [2].
i-LAB and Nano-Bionics Division, Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech & Nano-Bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou 215123, China.
Nat Commun. 2014;5:3313. doi: 10.1038/ncomms4313.
Hydrogels are generally thought to be formed by nano- to micrometre-scale fibres or polymer chains, either physically branched or entangled with each other to trap water. Although there are also anisotropic hydrogels with apparently ordered structures, they are essentially polymer fibre/discrete polymer chains-based network without exception. Here we present a type of polymer-free anisotropic lamellar hydrogels composed of 100-nm-thick water layers sandwiched by two bilayer membranes of a self-assembled nonionic surfactant, hexadecylglyceryl maleate. The hydrogels appear iridescent as a result of Bragg's reflection of visible light from the periodic lamellar plane. The particular lamellar hydrogel with extremely wide water spacing was used as a soft two-dimensional template to synthesize single-crystalline nanosheets in the confined two-dimensional space. As a consequence, flexible, ultrathin and large area single-crystalline gold membranes with atomically flat surface were produced in the hydrogel. The optical and electrical properties were detected on a single gold membrane.
水凝胶通常被认为是由纳米到微米级的纤维或聚合物链形成的，这些纤维或聚合物链要么通过物理分支，要么彼此纠缠在一起，以捕获水。尽管也有具有明显有序结构的各向异性水凝胶，但它们本质上无一例外都是基于聚合物纤维/离散聚合物链的网络。在这里，我们提出了一种无聚合物的各向异性层状水凝胶，由 100nm 厚的水层组成，夹在两个自组装非离子表面活性剂马来酸十六酰甘油酯的双层膜之间。由于可见光从周期性层状平面的布拉格反射，水凝胶呈现出虹彩。这种具有极宽水间距的特殊层状水凝胶被用作软二维模板，在受限的二维空间内合成单晶纳米片。结果，在水凝胶中制备出了具有原子级平整表面的柔性、超薄和大面积单晶金膜。在单个金膜上检测了其光学和电学性能。
