Tris(8-hydroxyquinoline)aluminum (III) (Alq3) nanowires templated from an eggshell membrane

One to 2-µm long, ≤ 400-nm wide amorphous tris(8-hydroxyquinoline)aluminum (III) (Alq3) nanowires (NWs) grown from the 15-min boiled outer shell membrane (OSM) of the hen's egg and from the OSM solution cast film via thermal evaporation with a source temperature of 260 °C and a substrate temperature of 138 °C under 6.7 × 10−2 Pa gave about 1.4 to 1.7 times more photoluminescence emission than the control Alq3 sample did, which was grown from the plain glass surface. The characteristic bonding energies of C 1s X-ray photoelectron signal at 282 eV, O 1s signal at 529 eV and N 1s signal at 397 eV suggested that the relatively high NW density for the 15-min boiled OSM and the OSM solution cast film, was mainly caused by the formation of the O═C–O–C═O anhydride moiety and the C═N group in the proteinaceous OSM at high temperature of 90 °C to 100 °C. Therefore, we proposed that the 15-min boiled OSM and the OSM solution cast film apparently served as good templates by providing nano-regions of high concentration of the O═C–O–C═O anhydride groups and the C═N groups for nesting the Alq3 gas molecules to form nano-conical Alq3 nuclei for the growth of long and narrow NWs.