Ceramics from segregated polymers.

Mixing polystyrene, the stuff of plastic cups, and polyisoprene, a material used for making automobile tires, is like trying to combine oil and water. The two polymers repel each other vigorously. Nonetheless, chemists can force them together so the substances assemble themselves into a so-called block copolymer, in which the two materials are inextricably linked (SN: 9/3/88, p. 151).

Now, researchers have put a silicon-containing block copolymer to use. They demonstrated that the copolymer can serve as the starting material in a simple, versatile process for making thin ceramic films containing a network of connected pores or linked struts. Edwin L. Thomas and Vanessa Z.-H. Chan of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and their collaborators describe the fabrication technique in the Nov. 26 SCIENCE.

By carefully choosing the polymer proportions, the researchers can tailor the resulting ceramic structure to serve as a membrane, catalyst, or photonic material.