Since its inception a decade ago, sol-gel encapsulation has opened up an intriguing new way to immobilize biological materials. An array of substances, including catalytic antibodies, DNA, RNA, antigens, live bacterial, fungal, plant and animal cells and whole protozoa, have been encapsulated in silica, metal-oxide, organosiloxane and hybrid sol-gel polymers. The advantages of these 'living cer...

An one-step, fast and potential low cost process has been developed to fabricate silica like glass nanostructures by combining sol-gel chemistry and thermal nanoimprint. An inorganic-organic sol-gel thin film is patterned at low pressure and temperature with flexible stamps. Various geometries are achieved with a patterning resolution of about 150 nm and patterns aspect ratio higher than 4. To ...

The development of scintillating materials is believed to reach a new step by controlling their preparation on a nanometric level. Sol-Gel chemistry offers very unique tools for nanoscale mastering of the materials preparation. In particular, shaping of the materials as thin films or nanoparticles offers new application in medical imaging. The control of doping ions dispersion thanks to soft ch...

We present a study on filamentous actin solutions containing heavy meromyosin subfragments of myosin II motor molecules. We focus on the viscoelastic phase behavior and internal dynamics of such networks during adenosine-triphosphate depletion. By combining microrheology and fluorescence microscopy, we observed a sol-gel transition accompanied by a sudden onset of directed filament motion. We i...

This paper reports a method to integrate silica aerogels monolithically in microfluidic chips. Silica Aerogel is a highly porous bulk material. The gel was synthesized from tetraethyl orthosilicate by a sol-gel process. Polyethylene glycol and an extended aging period were used to strengthen the matrix minimizing gel shrinkage. This technique allows alcogel structures with high strength and sti...

The aim of the presented investigations was to develop a technique of producing Bragg's gratings on planar waveguides for their application in acoustooptic structures. Waveguides are obtained by means of the sol-gel technology and they are deposited on piezoelectric plates. The introduction of a beam of light into the structure of the waveguide is in the case of planar or strip optical systems ...

This paper presents the optimization process in sol-gel technique to synthesize Titanium dioxide (TiO2) thin films using in-house Nano-TiO2 powder. Nano-TiO2 powder was previously synthesized in our lab from ilmenite which is a tin mining byproduct using a modified hydrothermal method. By varying the mass of Nano-TiO2 powder and acetic acid (catalyst) concentration in the sol-gel process, highl...

in this investigation, fluor-hydroxyapatite (fha) film was deposited on a titanium substrate by sol-gel method. triethyl phosphite, ammonium fluoride and calcium nitrate in ethanol solutions were used respectively as p, f and ca precursors. typical apatite structures were obtained for all coatings after dipping and subsequent heat treatment at 550, 700 and 800 ºc, the coating layers were invest...

in this work, sio2 –zro2 mixed oxides was prepared by the polymeric sol–gel route. the characterization of pore structure, which determines the permeation process of membrane, is of great importance. so far, most investigations have focused on such pore structure as specific surface area and pore size distribution, but the surface fractal, the important parameter reflecting the roughness of por...

in the present investigation surface modification of silica nanoparticles by alumina was carried out by sol-gel process. fourier transform infrared (ftir) and x-ray fluorescence (xrf) confirmed the synthesis of silica and the surface modification as alumina is anchored to silica surface. field emission scanning electron microscopy (fesem) and transmission electron microscopy (tem) investigation...