Bio-inspired hierarchical self-assembly of nanotubes into multidimensional and multi-scale structures
writer：Liu, Y.; Gao, Y.; Lu, Q. H.; Zhou, Y. F.*; Yan, D. Y.
keywords：self-assembly, multidimensional, multi-scale
source：期刊
specific source：Nanoscale 2012, 4, 224. http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2012/nr/c1nr11151e#!divAbst
Issue time：2012年
As inspired from nature''s strategy to prepare collagen, herein we report a hierarchical solutionself-assembly method to prepare multi-dimensional and multi-scale supra-structures from the building blocks of pristine titanate nanotubes (TNTs) around 10 nm. With the help of amylose, the nanotubes was continuously self-assembled into helically wrapped TNTs, highly aligned fibres, large bundles, 2D crystal facets and 3D core–shell hybrid crystals. The amyloses work as the glue molecules to drive and direct the hierarchical self-assembly process extending from microscopic to macroscopic scale. The whole self-assembly process as well as the self-assembly structures were carefully characterized by the combination methods of 1H NMR, CD, Hr-SEM, AFM, Hr-TEM, SAED pattern and EDX measurements. A hierarchical self-assemblymechanism was also proposed.