Nanocrystalline Oxides: Surfactants-Assisted Growth

Advances in nanoparticle synthesis stem from their fundamental technological importance; numerous research efforts have recently been devoted to the preparation of metal oxide nanostructures with tailored features, because of their unique electronic, optical, and mechanical properties and their widespread potential applications in fields including catalysis, nanoelectronics, optoelectronics, and biotechnology.[1–4] The use of surfactants to control the features of tailored nanoparticles is widespread, and the number of synthetic routes reported in the literature to obtain oxides with controlled features is enormous. The adopted procedures can be complex and composite so that it is not always easy to individuate some common principle in the selection of the stages, conditions, and nature of surfactant molecules. In this article, results will be grouped with reference to three main categories that imply a different philosophy of operation: templated synthesis, microemulsion procedure, and hydrothermal growth.