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Materials Science and Engineering, University of Michigan

  MSE / Research / Projects / Advanced Silesquioxane Research Program

Advanced Silesquioxane Research Program
Collaborators: Kunio Takahashi
Materials: Organic Nanomaterials
Application: Nanotechnology Structural
Technique: Processing Characterization Synthesis

Our objective in this work is to develop synthesis-processing relationships for cubic silsesquioxane [(RSiO1.5)8] or cube based materials with the goal of learning to predict, control and tailor materials’ properties one nanometer at a time. Cubes are made easily via common sol-gel methods, and represent a new frontier in materials chemistry, science and engineering because they offer the potential to develop and tailor composite materials with control at the finest length scales.

Recent work on mono and polyfunctional silsesquioxanes suggests that these materials offer the potential to make libraries of nanoplatforms and nanobuilding blocks with diverse functional groups and thereafter highly tailored nanocomposite materials with novel properties. In particular, efforts are made to develop routes to core shell materials with multiple functionalities through the development of new ways to selectively functionalize the aromatic rings of octa and dodeca-phenylsilsesquioxanes for further elaboration. An additional goal of our work is to build libraries of nanobuilding blocks from nanoplatforms, i.e. as Q8 [(ROSiO1.5)8] and T8/12 functionalized silsesquioxanes.

This work targets creation of new Q8 and octa and dodecaphenylsilsesquioxane (OPS, DPS) materials with functional groups that are potentially liquid crystalline, light emitting or absorbing, materials for electronic substrates with good high temperature stability and that offer good film forming properties.
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