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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik
CPP 2: Nanoparticles and Composite Materials
CPP 2.4: Talk
Monday, March 26, 2012, 10:15–10:30, C 243
Assembly of nanoparticles on diblock copolymer brushes: toward laterally nanostructured composites — •Olga Guskova1 and Christian Seidel2 — 1Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research, Dresden, Germany — 2Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Potsdam, Germany
We study the self-assembly of polymer-unsoluble nanoparticles (NPs) at the surface of microphase-separated AB diblock copolymer brushes in a selective solvent by means of dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) simulations. The structure of such nanocomposites depends both on the morphology of the underlying brush which is basically determined by chain composition f and solvent selectivity t(B), and on specific parameters of the NPs added such as polymer compatibility a(BP), solvophobicity a(PS), and concentration c, where a(ij) are the DPD interaction parameters. The immense parameter space is explored within a coarse grained model that contains polymer A and B beads, solvent (S), nanoparticle (P), and wall (W) beads. For composites with B-like nanoparticles, i.e., NPs that are covered by polymer B ligands, we construct the phase diagram in the f-c space. For B-unlike NPs, it is found that the solvophobicity of the particles set by a(PS) is crucial for the spreading of the nanodroplets. We show that in principle microphase separated diblock copolymer brushes can be used to create ordered nanodots as well as nanowires and deduce some rules which should facilitate the design of such novel polymer nanocomposites.