journal article·2026-02Open access

Kinetic Insights into Precursor‐Assisted Soft Sphere Close Packing Revealed by In Situ GISAXS with Implications for Gas Sensing

Guangjiu Pan, Wenhe Xie, Suzhe Liang, Ting Tian, Shanshan Yin, Lixing Li, Altantulga Buyan‐Arivjikh, Jinsheng Zhang, Thomas Baier, Zhuijun Xu, Matthias Schwartzkopf, Sarathlal Koyiloth Vayalil, Stephan V. Roth, Yonghui Deng, Peter Müller‐Buschbaum

Advanced Functional Materials· Volume 36· Issue 16

Abstract

Abstract Packing of soft spheres, such as micelles, polymer‐grafted particles, and microgels, enables the creation of diverse functional materials. Despite the importance of achieving precise structural control, understanding the kinetics of non‐equilibrium packing in a large‐scale deposition process remains challenging. This study investigates the kinetics of the precursor‐assisted close packing of soft spheres using block copolymer micelles as the sphere model. Adding the inorganic precursor SnCl 4 is crucial for achieving the close packing, which is versatile and provides a robust platform for tailoring mesoporous materials with tunable pore sizes. The kinetics of the close‐packing process are explored by in situ grazing‐incidence small‐angle X‐ray scattering measurements during slot‐die coating. The soft crystallization process shows six distinct stages: dilute dispersion, concentrated dispersion, wet film, structuring wet film, gel film, and glassy film. The close packing develops first in the in‐plane direction with rapid domain growth and then advances in the out‐of‐plane direction. Precursors in the interstitial voids play a key role by mitigating packing frustration and favoring face‐centered cubic (FCC) ordering. The structure finally stabilizes into a well‐ordered FCC structure with large domain sizes. The derived mesoporous SnO 2 features semiconducting properties and enhanced pore connectivity, thus showing superior gas sensing performance toward ethanol.
Source: crossref · Quality: baseline

Research context

OpenAlex topics: Gas Sensing Nanomaterials and Sensors · ZnO doping and properties · Covalent Organic Framework Applications

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

Affiliations

Chair for Functional Materials Department of Physics TUM School of Natural Sciences Technical University of Munich James‐Franck‐Str. 1 85748 Garching Germany

Department of Chemistry State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Material (iChEM) College of Smart Materials and Future Energy Fudan University Shanghai 200433 China

Eastern Institute for Advanced Study Eastern Institute of Technology Ningbo Zhejiang 315201 P. R. China

School of Mathematics and Physics Jiangsu University of Technology Changzhou 213001 China

Deutsches Elektronen‐Synchrotron DESY Notkestr. 85 22607 Hamburg Germany

Applied Sciences Cluster University of Petroleum and Energy Studies UPES Dehradun Uttarakhand 248007 India

Department of Fibre and Polymer Technology KTH Royal Institute of Technology Teknikringen 56‐58 Stockholm 100 44 Sweden

Funding

National Science Foundation · China Postdoctoral Science Foundation · China Scholarship Council · Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft · National Natural Science Foundation of China · Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst · Center for NanoScience, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

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