2010 年 52 巻 6 号 p. 295-300
The rational assembly of ultrathin films of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) —highly ordered microporous materials— with well-controlled growth direction and film thickness is a critical and as yet unrealised issue for enabling the use of MOFs in nanotechnological devices, such as sensors, catalysts, and electrodes for fuel cells. Here we explain our recent success of the facile bottom-up fabrication of such a perfect preferentially-oriented MOF nanofilm on a solid surface (NAFS-1), consisting of metalloporphyrin building units. The assembly of NAFS-1 was achieved by the unconventional integration in a modular fashion of a layer-by-layer (LbL) growth technique coupled with the Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) method. NAFS-1 is endowed with highly crystalline order both in the out-of-plane and in-plane orientations to the substrate, as determined by synchrotron X-ray surface crystallography. We expect that the versatility of the solution-based growth strategy presented here will allow the fabrication of various well-ordered MOF nanofilms, opening the way for their use in a range of important applications.