Abstract
Simulations and experiments of nanorods (NRs) show that co-assembly with block copolymer (BCP) melts leads to the formation of a superstructure of side-to-side NRs perpendicular to the lamellar axis. A mesoscopic model is validated against scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of CdSe NRs mixed with polystyrene-block-poly(methyl methacrylate). It is then used to study the co-assembly of anisotropic nanoparticles (NPs) with a length in the same order of magnitude as the lamellar spacing. The phase diagram of BCP/NP is explored as well as the time evolution of the NR. NRs that are slightly larger than the lamellar spacing are found to rotate and organize side-to-side with a tilted orientation with respect to the interface. Strongly interacting NPs are found to dominate the co-assembly, while weakly interacting nanoparticles are less prone to form aggregates and tend to form well-ordered configurations.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 3234-3249 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| Journal | Macromolecules |
| Volume | 53 |
| Issue number | 8 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:I.P. acknowledges support from MINECO (grant no. PGC2018-098373-B-100), DURSI (grant no. 2017 SGR 884), and SNF Project No. 200021-175719. The authors thank Elina Ploshnik, Asaf Salant, and Uri Banin for their contribution to the experimental results shown in the paper. Financial support was provided by the Israeli Science Foundation (grant number 229/17). J.D. thanks the BritishSpanish Society for financial support.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 American Chemical Society.