| Ordered silica/surfactant composite can be formed by the cooperative interaction and self organization between surfactant and silicate molecules in solution under appropriate conditions. The nanometer sized pores in the silica can be furthered aligned along an external magnetic field direction. Aligned mesoporous silica has been used to incorporate semiconducting conjugated polymer molecules. In this new host/guest composite material polymer chains were partially incorporated in the straight channels of silica and isolated from each other by insulated silica walls. In this way energy transfer along the conjugated polymer backbone and the dynamics of this process can be studied by the utilization of polarized fluorescence and ultrafast laser spectroscopy.; The mechanical properties of the mesoporous silica as a host material was further probed by using high pressure generated in diamond anvil cell. By using a plethora of experimental techniques, such as X-ray diffraction, fluorescence probe molecule, micro-FTIR. It was found out the ordered mesoporous silica framework shows excellent mechanical properties under high pressure: stiffness and reversibility. It can withstand hydrostatic pressure as high as 12 GPa. Guest molecules encapsulated inside the pores are protected from the extreme high pressure condition by the silica framework. As shown by IR spectroscopy the observed experimental results were closely related to atomic structural transformations in the amorphous silica framework. |
