HOLLOW, BRANCHED AND MULTIFUNCTIONAL NANOPARTICLES: SYNTHESIS, PROPERTIES AND APPLICATIONS

Nanoscale materials with various structures have attracted extensive research interest during the past decade. Among them, hollow, branched and multifunctional nanoparticles comprised of two different nanoparticle components are emerging as new classes of interesting nanomaterials owing to the unique optical, catalytic, electrical, magnetic and mechanical properties associated with their unusual morphologies as well as their potential wide range of applications in various fields such as photothermal therapy, diagnosis, drug delivery, catalysis, optoelectronic, electronics and biodiagnostics. In particular, branched nanoparticles promise to serve as building blocks for more complex materials and advanced devices through self-assembly and self-alignment and heterodimeric nanoparticles show promise for the development of tunable magnetic materials and multimodal biodiagnostic imaging tools.