Colloidal microand nanospheres have been of continuous research interest, since their intrinsic properties can be finely tuned by changing parameters such as diameter, chemical composition, bulk structure, and crystallinity. Up to now, they have found a broad range of applications in fields such as drug delivery, biodiagnostics, combinatorial synthesis, and photonic band-gap crystals (PBG). The...

Chemical Mechanical Polishing is a unique process enabling technology that allows chip makers to readily drive lithographic patterning steps to smaller dimensions, an ages old, “retro” technology related to glass polishing and metallographic finishing, thus enabling optical lithography to work. It represents a situation that is a true paradigm shift from the typical way in which technological a...

Reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer polymerization (RAFT) was used to prepare polymer brushes grafted onto silica nanoparticles. Novel RAFT-silane agents were prepared that contained both an active RAFT moiety and a silane coupling agent. RAFT agents were anchored to silica nanoparticles by the functionalization of colloidal silica with the RAFT-silane agents. RAFT polymerizations ...

General fertilizer practice recognizes in a vague way that there are reactions between soils and phosphatic fertilizers which affect the efficiency of the fertilizers. Bone meal, for instance, is recommended for use on open soils which are not too dry (39, p. 169), and for light soils not too deficient in phosphoric acid (3%, p. 320). Floats are recommended by Wheeler (39, p. 173) for acid soil...

The effects of silica particle addition on the wetting velocity on flat and fractal agar gel surfaces were analyzed along with the applicability of such particles for controlling the wetting dynamics of water. The contact angles (θD) of the colloidal dispersions obeyed the power law, i.e., θD∝t(-x), where t is time and x is a constant. Wetting was inhibited by the addition of a suitable amount ...

Highly selective porous films were prepared by spin-coating deposition of colloidal silica nanoparticles on an appropriate macroporous substrate. Silica nanoparticles very homogenous in size were obtained by sol-gel reaction of a metal oxide silica precursor, tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS), and using polystyrene-block-poly(ethylene oxide) (PS-b-PEO) copolymers as soft-templating agents. Nanopa...