A new mesostructured hybrid organic-inorganic silica host with internal anchored acetylacetonate groups has been used as a matrix for the growing and organization of Fe 3 O 4 nanoparticles. The approach used consists in the impregnation and the subsequent organic solution-phase decomposition of the molecular precursor Fe[(OC(CH 3 )) 2 CH] 3 into the hybrid silica pores. The magnetic nanocomposite material obtained was fully characterized using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), infrared spectroscopy (IR), nitrogen physisorption, X-ray diffraction techniques and magnetic measurements. These measurements reveal the presence of uniformly sized pure magnetite nanoparticles with a narrow size distribution of 3-4.5 nm exclusively inside the silica matrix. The data demonstrate that the covalent anchoring of the molecular precursor in the silica plays a crucial role in the fabrication of nanocomposites presenting a homogeneous spatial distribution of nanoparticles.

The preparation of multifunctional mesoporous silica containing a NLO chromophore in the framework (bridged azobenzene phosphonium salts) and mercaptopropyl groups able to stabilize gold(0) nanoparticles in the channel pores was achieved in one step by using the direct liquid crystal templating approach.