Inside Front Cover: Self‐Assembly of Diblock‐Copolymer Micelles for Template‐Based Preparation of PbTiO₃ Nanograins (Adv. Funct. Mater. 18/2006)

Abstract

A bottom‐up fabrication route for PbTiO3 nanograins with dimensions of 30 nm, based on predefined TiO2 nanostructures, is presented on p. 2346 by Karthäuser, Rathgeber, and co‐workers. The patterning of the TiO2 seeds was performed by means of a self‐organized micellar monofilm used as an etching template. The dimensions of the micelle template are transferred across all process steps to the final PbTiO3 nanograins. A bottom‐up fabrication route for PbTiO3 nanograins grown on predefined TiO2 nanostructures used as seeds is presented. The structuring of the TiO2 seeds is performed using a self‐organized template constructed from a gold‐loaded micellar monofilm. With this fabrication process, TiO2 seeds and PbTiO3 grains with diameters of 12 and 30 nm, respectively, are prepared without the need for electron‐beam lithography. The dimensions of the structure imposed by the micellar template are transferred through all the processing steps to the final PbTiO3 grains. Furthermore, it is shown that the intermicelle distance and the degree of order in the dried monofilm is mainly determined by the preparation conditions, such as the pulling velocity in the dipping process and the strength of the surface–micelle interaction, and not necessarily by the architectural properties (block length and ratio) of the diblock copolymers that build the micelles. The intermicelle spacing in the dried film is much smaller than the micelle dimensions in solution, and approaches the dimensions of a fully collapsed micelle when the dipping process is performed slowly enough.