Nanoporous ordered materials: Osmotically shocked

The coordinated osmotic shocks within ordered materials lead to nanoperforated multilayer structures that are making inroads into the application in photonics, optoelectronics and ultrafiltration. The researchers have showed that the perforated nanostructures behave as one-dimensional photonic crystals, and they can be used as ultrafiltration membranes and as electrodes in light-emitting devices. One of the group involving Zavala-Rivera and co-authors have reported a method that is based on swelling-induced expansion of the minority phase. The researchers used a polystyrene-block-poly (methyl methacrylate) (PS-b-PMMA) thin film, which forms hexagonally close-packed PMMA spheres within a PS matrix. They also proposed that the osmotic-shock explosions occurred collectively in a layer-by-layer fashion, expanding the material.