Design of anisotropic nanostructures using microemulsions

Water-in oil microemulsions can be intelligently designed to form organized assemblies which can then be used as nanoreactors for synthesizing a variety of nanomaterials. The size and morphology of the desired product is controlled by manipulating the parameters involved in the formation of a microemulsion like Wo ([H2O]/[Surfactant]), and the nature of solvent, surfactant and co-surfactant. This review focuses on understanding the controlled growth of anisotropic nanostructures using microemulsions emphasizing on the recent contributions by our group on synthesis of nickel and copper oxalate nanorods and silica nanostructures. We believe that this review will espouse the ability of the microemulsion method to control the shape and size of nanostructures.