Chemistry Department Seminar

Various nanostructured materials, such as light-emitting nanoarchitectures, hierarchical porous structures, metal nanoparticles, microporous polymer, sponge-like microporous silica, non-closed packed nanoarrays, and nanotrees were fabricated by simply irradiating an electron beam onto organic and inorganic precursors. Electron irradiation decomposes the precursor materials and changes the molecular structure of the materials. As a result, new materials of the chemical structures that is completely different from the precursors can be created from the precursors.
The morphologies and the chemical structures of the final products can be controlled by changing the electron irradiation parameters and the precursor materials. The electron approach is a straightforward approach to synthesize a variety of nanostructured materials because a single electron irradiation process is necessary for the production of the final products. Moreover, the electron irradiation approach is a parallel process and thus the nanostructured materials can be prepared on a large scale by increasing the irradiation area of an electron beam, allowing mass production of the materials.
These unique nanostructured materials can be used for diverse applications, such as superhydrophobic and superhydrophilic films, low-dielectric coating, and photonic devices. Moreover, we recently found that some organic and inorganic materials can be transformed into semiconducting materials by electron irradiation. Consequently, the produced materials promise their applications to light-emitting devices, organic solar cells, and photocatalysts.