Superhydrophilic and antireflective La(OH)(3)/SiO(2)-nanorod/nanosphere films

La(OH)(3) nanorods were self-stacked on the glass slide substrates using an aqueous suspension obtained from the hydrolysis of LaOCl. The key for producing a high optical quality film of La(OH)(3) lies in the preparation of an aqueous suspension in which La(OH)(3) nanorods are well dispersed. These thin-film coatings of La(OH)(3) nanorods led to a significantly reduced reflective losses in the visible region, exhibiting an attractive and potentially useful single-layer antireflection property. Furthermore, La(OH)(3) nanorod layer provides a sufficiently porous and rough surface required to achieve superhydrophilicity. Thus, when SiO(2) nanoparticles of ca. 20nm in diameter were deposited onto La(OH)(3) layer of high roughness, the resulting La(OH)(3)/SiO(2) film demonstrated an interesting nanoporosity-derived superhydrophilicity and antifogging property with no significant loss of antireflective property.