Lippmaa Group
- Affiliation
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Division of Nanoscale Science
(concurrent with Functional Materials Group) - Course
- Adv. Mat., Frontier Sci.
Research Associate MORI, Taizo
Research Subjects
- Growth of thin oxide films and heterostructures by pulsed laser deposition
- Synthesis of nanostructures and nanocomposite thin films
- Fabrication of organic-inorganic composite thin films
- In situ tracking of molecular motions and orientations at the air-water interface
Our laboratory mostly works on oxide thin films and heterostructures grown by pulsed laser deposition. Recently, we have looked at other interfaces, preparing Polyhedral Oligomeric SilSesquioxanes (POSS) molecular layers. POSSs have a cage structure and can be modified with various functional groups. Molecular layers can be prepared at the air-water interface by using the Langmuir-Blodgett method. POSS is an organic-inorganic composite material with potential applications in electronics and photonics.
When a POSS with hydrophilic cyclohexanediol is spread at the air-water interface, the thin film can be transferred onto a substrate at a specific surface pressure. As shown in the surface pressure-molecular area isotherm and atomic force microscope images, the POSS formed a uniform monolayer. The band structures with the height of several nm and the width of tens mm form at higher transfer pressure. Such thin films can be used in novel sensor systems, where cyclohexanediol works as a functional group.
