Synthesis and photocatalytic properties of hierarchical metal nanoparticles/ZnO thin films hetero nanostructures assisted by diblock copolymer inverse micellar nanotemplates.

Metal dot-on-ZnO type hierarchical nanostructures composed of ordered arrays of noble metal nanoparticles with controlled areal density, prepared from poly(styrene-block-vinyl pyridine) diblock copolymer inverse micelles loaded with metal precursors, on sol-gel process based approximately 48 nm thick ZnO thin films exhibit enhanced photocatalytic activities compared with pure ZnO thin films in terms of photodegradation of methylene blue. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.