Hollow CuO nanospheres have been prepared via a reduction reaction of copper ions on porous Si nanowires combined with calcination in air and uniformly anchored on their surfaces. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were employed to characterize and analyze as-synthesized samples. The results reveal that Si nanowi...

To date, high compressive ductility and energy absorption have been achieved in amorphous metal foams based on high-toughness Pdand Zr-based metallic glasses and are known to result from two extrinsic toughening mechanisms: bending of struts and shear band arrest by pores. We study here a syntactic amorphous metallic foam produced by infiltration of a bed of hollow crystalline iron spheres with...

The structure of a polymeric material has a great influence in many fundamental scientific areas as well as in more applied science, since it affects the diffusion, permeability, mechanical strength, elasticity, and colloidal properties of the materials. The results in this thesis demonstrate that it is possible to fabricate solid and hollow cellulose spheres with a cellulose shell and encapsul...

[1] The ability of an assembly of spheres to represent scattering and absorption by a nonspherical ice crystal of the same volume-to-area (V/A) ratio was previously evaluated for convex shapes (circular cylinders and hexagonal prisms). Here we extend the comparison to indented and hollow prisms, which are common in ice clouds. In the equivalent-sphere representation, the crystal mass and surfac...

A novel process was developed for direct synthesis and in situ coating of flame-made nanostructured particles in one step. Rutile TiO2 particles made by flame spray pyrolysis (FSP) were coated in a single step with SiO2 layers in an enclosed flame reactor. This in situ particle coating was accomplished by a hollow ring delivering hexamethyldisiloxane (HMDSO) vapor (precursor to SiO2) through mu...

Hollow carbon spheres (HCS) with a nanoporous shell are promising for the use in lithium-sulfur batteries because of the large internal void offering space for sulfur and polysulfide storage and confinement. However, there is an ongoing discussion whether the cavity is accessible for sulfur. Yet no valid proof of cavity filling has been presented, mostly due to application of unsuitable high-va...

In this paper we investigate the electrostriction effect on the whispering gallery modes (WGM) of polymeric microspheres and the feasibility of a WGM-based microsensor for electric field measurement. The electrostriction is the elastic deformation (strain) of a dielectric material under the force exerted by an electrostatic field. The deformation is accompanied by mechanical stress which pertur...

Hollow micro/nano structures form an important family of functional materials. We have used the thermal oxidation process combined with the passage of electric current during a structural phase transition to disclose a colossal mass diffusion transfer of Ti ions. This combination points to a new route for fabrication of hollow materials. A structural phase transition at high temperature prepare...

Hollow nickel silicate nanospheres (NiSiO3 NSs) with hierarchical shells were hydrothermally synthesized by using silica spheres as a template. The NiSiO3 NSs have an average diameter of 250 nm with a shell thickness of 50 nm, and the hierarchical shell consists of a large number of sheets. By taking advantage of the high affinity of Ni(2+) toward histidine-tagged (His-tagged) proteins, hollow ...

Cu2O p-type semiconductor hollow porous microspheres have been prepared by using a simple soft-template method at room temperature. The morphology of as-synthesized samples is hollow spherical structures with the diameter ranging from 200 to 500 nm, and the surfaces of the spheres are rough, porous and with lots of channels and folds. The photocatalytic activity of degradation of methyl orange ...