Materials with nanoscopic dimensions not only have potential technological applications in areas such as device technology and drug delivery but also are of fundamental interest in that the properties of a material can change in this regime of transition between the bulk and molecular scales. In this article, a relatively new method for preparing nanomaterials, membrane-based synthesis, is reviewed. This method entails synthesis of the desired material within the pores of a nanoporous membrane. Because the membranes used contain cylindrical pores of uniform diameter, monodisperse nanocylinders of the desired material, whose dimensions can be carefully controlled, are obtained. This "template" method has been used to prepare polymers, metals, semiconductors, and other materials on a nanoscopic scale.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/266/5193/1961.full.pdf

Nanomaterials: a membrane-based synthetic approach.

Electrogenerated chemiluminescence (also called electrochemiluminescence and abbreviated ECL) is the process whereby species generated at electrodes undergo high-energy electron-transfer reactions to form excited states that emit light. The first detailed ECL studies were described by Hercules and Bard et al. in the mid-1960s, although reports concerning light emission during electrolysis date back to the 1920s by Harvey. After about 40 years study, ECL has now become a very powerful analytical technique and been widely used in the areas of, for example, immunoassay, food and water testing, and biowarfare agent detection. ECL has also been successfully exploited as a detector of flow injection analysis (FIA), high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), capillary electrophoresis, and micro total analysis (μTAS). Figure 1 illustrates a time line of various events in the development of ECL. A literature survey using SciFinder Scholar reveals that more than 2000 journal articles, book chapters, and patents on various topics of ECL have been published. The overall number of publications, as shown in Figure 2, has increased exponentially over the past 20 years, of which 40–50% were biorelated. Similar amounts of ECL papers could be also found from the Thomson ISI Web of Science as well as † Telephone (601) 266 4716; fax (601) 266 6075; e-mail wujian.miao@ usm.edu. Wujian Miao received his undergraduate diploma in chemistry from Nantong University (Nantong, China) in 1982, his M.Sc. degree in analytical chemistry from Zhongshan University (Guangzhou, China, with Jinyuan Mo) in 1991, and his Ph.D. degree in electrochemistry from Monash University (Melbourne, Australia, with Alan M. Bond) in 2000. He then served as a Research Scientist in CSIRO (Melbourne, Australia), followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Texas at Austin with Allen J. Bard in 2001. Since 2004 he has served as an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Electrogenerated Chemiluminescence and Its Biorelated Applications

We have developed an electrochemical method to quantify the surface density of DNA immobilized on gold. The surface density of DNA, more specifically the number of nucleotide phosphate residues, is calculated from the amount of cationic redox marker measured at the electrode surface. DNA was immobilized on gold by forming mixed monolayers of thiol-derivitized, single-stranded oligonucleotide and 6-mercapto-1-hexanol. The saturated amount of charge-compensating redox marker in the DNA monolayer, determined using chronocoulometry, is directly proportional to the number of phosphate residues and thereby the surface density of DNA. This method permits quantitative determination of both single- and double-stranded DNA at electrodes. Surface densities of single-stranded DNA were precisely varied in the range of (1−10) × 1012 molecules/cm2, as determined by the electrochemical method, using mixed monolayers. We measured the hybridization efficiency of immobilized single-stranded DNA to complementary strands as a...

Electrochemical Quantitation of DNA Immobilized on Gold

Radiative decay engineering: biophysical and biomedical applications.

This article reviews a general template-based approach for the
preparation of nanomaterials. The method involves the synthesis of a
desired material within the pores of a nanoporous membrane. We have termed
this approach ‘template synthesis’ because the pores within
these nanoporous membranes act as templates for the synthesis of
nanostructures of the desired material. Because the pores within these
membranes are cylindrical and of uniform diameter, monodisperse
nanocylinders of the desired material are obtained. Depending on the
chemistry of the pore wall and material, these nanocylinders may be either
hollow (a tubule) or solid (a fibril or nanowire). This template process
will be shown to be a very general approach in the fabrication of
nanotubes and fibrils composed of a variety of materials including
polymers, metals, semiconductors, carbons, and other
materials.

A general template-based method for the preparation of nanomaterials

Reference LPI-ARTICLE-1991-027View record in Web of Science Record created on 2006-02-21, modified on 2017-05-12

Adsorbed .omega.-hydroxy thiol monolayers on gold electrodes: evidence for electron tunneling to redox species in solution

Self-assembled monolayers of ω-hydroxy thiols on Au electrodes are investigated as electron tunneling barriers allowing the measurement of heterogeneous electron kinetics of solution species over a wide range of electrode potentials without mass transport limitations. From the dependence of the electron-transfer rate of a series of redox couples on the thickness of the monolayer film, a more precise tunneling coefficient, β, of 1.08±0.20 per methylene unit in the ω-hydroxy thiol was measured independent of the redox couple and was found to be nearly independent of the electrode potential

Electrochemistry at .omega.-hydroxy thiol coated electrodes. 3. Voltage independence of the electron tunneling barrier and measurements of redox kinetics at large overpotentials

Tbe diffuse-layer potential and potential of zero charge at alkanethiol and ω-hydroxy thiol monolayers adsorbed at Au electrodes are extracted from differential capacitance data and compared with the predictions of a two-capacitor model for the electrode double layer. Modeling the double layer as an electrolyte-independent monolayer capacitor in series with a diffuse-layer capacitor calculated from the Gouy-Chapman theory, close agreement is found between the calculated and measured diffuse-layer potential versus electrode potential curves

Electrochemistry at .omega.-hydroxy thiol coated electrodes. 4. Comparison of the double layer at .omega.-hydroxy thiol and alkanethiol monolayer coated Au electrodes

The use of Au electrodes blocked with ω-hydroxy thiols for kinetics measurements at large electrode overpotentials is discussed. The adsorbed monolayer acts as a tunneling barrier slowing the rate of electron transfer allowing the measurement of redox kinetics at electrode overpotentials over 1 V without mass-transfer limitations. The cathodic heterogeneous electron-transfer kinetics for a series of six outer-sphere transition-metal complexes are measured at Au electrodes derivatized by a self-assembled organic monolayer of 16-hydroxy-1-hexadecylmercaptan from aqueous solutions

Electrochemistry at .omega.-hydroxythiol coated electrodes. 2. Measurement of the density of electronic states distributions for several outer-sphere redox couples

Cary J. Miller

Papers

Adsorbed .omega.-hydroxy thiol monolayers on gold electrodes: evidence for electron tunneling to redox species in solution

Electrochemistry at .omega.-hydroxy thiol coated electrodes. 3. Voltage independence of the electron tunneling barrier and measurements of redox kinetics at large overpotentials

Electrochemistry at .omega.-hydroxy thiol coated electrodes. 4. Comparison of the double layer at .omega.-hydroxy thiol and alkanethiol monolayer coated Au electrodes

Electrochemistry at .omega.-hydroxythiol coated electrodes. 2. Measurement of the density of electronic states distributions for several outer-sphere redox couples

Study of Langmuir Monolayers of Ruthenium Complexes and Their Aggregation by Electrogenerated Chemiluminescence