Mesoporous films obtained by supramolecular self-assembly and their characterisation by advanced techniques

Mesoporous films are characterised by the presence of ordered porosity in the 2 to 50 nm range. These systems are extremely interesting from a technological viewpoint due to the very high specific surface area (on the order of 1000 m^2/g) and the possibility to tune important parameters such as chemical composition, pore size and shape, pore accessibility. This doctorate work was aimed at the study on mesoporous thin films, a goal that has been tackled following two directions. The first goal was to promote a basic study on the synthetic and processing parameters through which mesoporous films are obtained: for example, using different precursors in order to vary the chemical composition of the films and modify physical parameters such as pore size and shape. The second direction followed in this work was to pursue an explorative study regarding applications of mesoporous coatings, for example for hierarchical multiscale porosity materials and in patterning of mesoporous thin films. Whilst dealing with these subjects, advanced characterisation techniques using synchrotron radiation were developed for the basic study of mesoporous films.