title: Incorporation of well-dispersed sub-5-nm graphitic pencil nanodots into ordered mesoporous frameworks.
abstract: Over the past few decades the direct assembly of optical nanomaterials into ordered mesoporous frameworks has proved to be a considerable challenge. Here we propose the incorporation of ultrasmall (sub-5-nm) graphitic pencil nanodots into ordered mesoporous frameworks for the fabrication of optoelectronic materials. The nanodots, which were prepared from typical commercial graphite pencils by an electrochemical tailoring process, combine properties such as uniform size (∼3 nm), excellent dispersibility and high photoconversion efficiency (∼27%). These nanodots were incorporated into a variety of ordered mesoporous frameworks (TiO2, silica, carbon and silica-carbon materials) by co-assembly, driven by hydrogen bonding, with the frameworks' precursors. The resulting materials showed a high degree of ordering, and a sharp increase in their optical performance (for example, photocurrent density). We envisage that the large-scale synthesis of ultrasmall carbon nanodots and their incorporation into ordered mesoporous frameworks may facilitate the preparation of materials with a variety of optical properties.
authors.affiliation: Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), Department of Chemistry, Laboratory of Advanced Materials, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.|Department of Chemical Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia.
authors.forename: Biao
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kong
authors.affiliation: Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), Department of Chemistry, Laboratory of Advanced Materials, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Computational Physical Sciences, Ministry of Education, State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics, Department of Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China, and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing 210093, China.
authors.forename: Yueyu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Computational Physical Sciences, Ministry of Education, State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics, Department of Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China, and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing 210093, China.
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Computational Physical Sciences, Ministry of Education, State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics, Department of Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China, and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing 210093, China.
authors.forename: Xingao
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Gong
authors.affiliation: Graphene Research Centre, National University of Singapore, 6 Science Drive 2, Singapore 117546, Singapore.
authors.forename: Chengxin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.affiliation: Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), Department of Chemistry, Laboratory of Advanced Materials, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.affiliation: Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), Department of Chemistry, Laboratory of Advanced Materials, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Jianping
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), Department of Chemistry, Laboratory of Advanced Materials, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Yongcheng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia.
authors.forename: Xianbiao
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), Department of Chemistry, Laboratory of Advanced Materials, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Gengfeng
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia.
authors.forename: Cordelia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Selomulya
authors.affiliation: Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), Department of Chemistry, Laboratory of Advanced Materials, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.|Department of Chemical Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia.
authors.forename: Dongyuan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zhao