Insertion of iron decorated organic-inorganic cage-like polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes between clay platelets by langmuir schaefer deposition

Abstract

Tuning the architecture of multilayer nanostructures by exploiting the properties of their constituents is a versatileway to developmultifunctional films. Herein,we report a bottom-up approach for the fabrication of highly ordered hybrid films consisting of dimethyldioctadecylammonium(DODA), iron decorated polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes (POSS), and montmorillonite clay platelets. Clay platelets provided the template where Fe/POSS moieties were grafted by the use of the surfactant. Driven by the iron ions present, DODA adopted a staggered arrangement, which is essential to realize the controllable layer-by-layer growth of the film. The elemental composition of the film was studied by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and X-ray reflectivity confirmed the existence of smooth interfaces between the different layers.