Silica-Based Nanoporous Materials

Mesoporous silica thin films with mesochannels oriented perpendicularly to the underlying support have attracted a great deal of attention over past years because of their potential applications as novel functional materials and hosts to confine guest molecules or catalysts, with advantageous features (such as favorable mass transport issues) with respect to other silica films exhibiting large surface area and uniform pore size, due to the vertical alignment of mesopore channels. However, the preparation of such vertically-aligned mesoporous silica films still remains extremely challenging. Here, we give an overview of the various synthetic approaches that have been proposed to date for the generation of vertically-aligned mesoporous silica films. We also present briefly the methods used for their characterization and some of their applications, especially their use as hard templates for getting other nanostructures.