Study of Self-Assembled Polymer Grafted Nanoparticles

Compared to using alkyl-chain-based ligands decorating the surfaces of the nanocrystals, polymeric ligands offer distinct advantages, as they allow for more precise tuning of the effective size and ‘interaction softness’ through changes to the polymer’s molecular weight, chemical nature, architecture, persistence length and surrounding solvent. Here the formation of polystyrene grafted nanoparticles, conditions for self-assembly of single-component superlattices and their scaling behavior with GISAXS, DLS and TEM analysis are discussed. Polystyrene grafted nanoparticles with different chemical nature (gold and iron oxide), core diameter (3-25nm) and brush thickness (1-10nm) are synthesized and the procedure of self-assembly is largely improved by liquid-air interface assembly. The softness of the polymer shell thus the interparticle distance as well as the ordering of self-assembled monolayers can be easily tuned by adjusting the solvent composition. This study can help to throw light onto the rational design of functional particle brush solids with controlled nanoscale interfaces and mesostructures.