Related papers: Morphological Control of Grafted Polymer Films by …
We perform molecular dynamics simulations of an idealized polymer melt surrounding a nanoscopic filler particle to probe the effects of a filler on the local melt structure and dynamics. We show that the glass transition temperature $T_g$…
This chapter deals with various aspects related to the adsorption of long chain-like macromolecules (polymers) onto solid surfaces. Physical aspects of the adsorption mechanism are elaborated mainly at thermodynamical equilibrium. The basic…
Because final properties of nanoscale polymeric structures are largely determined by the solid-state microstructure of the confined polymer, it is imperative not only to understand how the microstructure of polymers develops under nanoscale…
The present communication reports the first direct measurement of the conformation of a polymer corona grafted around silica nano-particles dispersed inside a nanocomposite, a matrix of the same polymer. This measurement constitutes an…
Polymer-grafted nanoparticles are versatile building blocks that self-assemble into a rich diversity of mesostructures. Coarse-grained molecular simulations have commonly accompanied experiments by resolving structure formation pathways and…
Nanoparticle monolayer sheets are ultrathin inorganic-organic hybrid materials that combine highly controllable optical and electrical properties with mechanical flexibility and remarkable strength. Like other thin sheets, their low bending…
This paper presents a study of the polymer-filler interfacial effects on filler dispersion and mechanical reinforcement in Polystyrene (PS) / silica nanocomposites by direct comparison of two model systems: un-grafted and PS-grafted silica…
We compare the thermodynamic behavior of a finite single nongrafted polymer near an attractive substrate with that of a polymer grafted to that substrate. After we recently found first-order-like signatures in the microcanonical entropy at…
Nanocomposite materials made of block copolymer and nanoparticles display properties which can be different from the purely polymeric matrix. The resulting material is a crossover of the original properties of the block copolymer and the…
Frictional contacts lead to the formation of a surface layer called the third body, consisting of wear particles and structures resulting from their agglomerates. Its behavior and properties at the nanoscale control the macroscopic…
Confined electronic states and optical transitions in 3D topological insulator nanoparticles have been studied in the literature, assuming idealized geometries such as spheres or infinitely long cylinders, that allow to obtain analytical…
Cellular uptake of nanoplastics is instrumental in their environmental accumulation and transfer to humans through the food chain. Despite extensive studies using spherical plastic nanoparticles, the influence of the morphological…
We examine the dynamics of silica particles grafted with high molecular weight polystyrene suspended in semidilute solutions of chemically similar linear polymer using x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy. The particle dynamics decouple…
Star polymers with magnetically functionalized end groups are presented as a novel polymeric system whose morphology, self-aggregation, and orientation can easily be tuned by exposing these macromolecules simultaneously to an external…
Macromolecular crowding can influence polymer shapes, which is important for understanding the thermodynamic stability of polymer solutions and the structure and function of biopolymers (proteins, RNA, DNA) under confinement. We explore the…
Nanoparticles can influence the properties of polymer materials by a variety of mechanisms. With fullerene, carbon nanotube, and clay or graphene sheet nanocomposites in mind, we investigate how particle shape influences the melt shear…
Cells offer numerous inspiring examples where proteins and membranes combine to form complex structures that are key to intracellular compartmentalization, cargo transport, and specialization of cell morphology. Despite this wealth of…
We report molecular dynamics simulation results on the equilibrium properties of polymer thin films adsorbed onto flat and curved substrates. We first systematically determine the contact angle of polymer droplets on flat substrates as a…
We propose a numerical tool to mimic the pulsed deposition of nanoparticles, a technique used to fabricate thin films from the deposition of nanoparticles upon a substrate. We employ such tool under different initial conditions, in…
Field-theoretical method is efficient in predicting the assembling structures of polymeric systems. However, for the polymer/nanoparticle mixture, the continuous density description is not suitable to capture the realistic assembly of…