Internal Microstructure Dictates Interactions of Polymer-grafted Nanoparticles in Solution
Léo Gury, Samruddhi Kamble, Daniele Parisi, Jianan Zhang, Jaejun Lee, Ayesha Abdullah, Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, Michael R. Bockstaller, Dimitris Vlassopoulos, George Fytas
Abstract
displays an unexpected reversal to negative values, thus indicating poor solvent conditions. These findings are rationalized by means of a simple analysis based on a coarse-grained brush potential, which balances the attractive core-core interactions and the excluded volume interactions imparted by the polymer grafts. The results suggest that the steric crowding of polymer ligands in dense GNP systems may fundamentally alter the interactions between brush particles in solution and highlight the crucial role of architecture (internal microstructure) on the behavior of hybrid materials. The effect of grafting density also illustrates the opportunity to tailor the physical properties of hybrid materials by altering geometry (or architecture) rather than a variation of the chemical composition.