Related papers: Morphology Selection of Nanoparticle Dispersions b…
Ordering nanoparticles into a desired super-structure is often crucial for their technological applications. We use molecular dynamics simulations to study the assembly of nanoparticles in a polymer brush randomly grafted to a planar…
The organization of nano-particles inside grafted polymer layers is governed by the interplay of polymer-induced entropic interactions and the action of externally applied fields. Earlier work had shown that strong external forces can drive…
Mixtures of nanoparticles and polymer-like objects are encountered in many nanotechnological applications and biological systems. We study the behavior of grafted polymer layers decorated by nanoparticles that are attracted to the polymers…
Polymeric nanoparticles (NPs) have a great application potential in science and technology. Their functionality strongly depends on their size. We present a theory for the size of NPs formed by precipitation of polymers into a bad solvent…
The structural features of polystyrene brushes grafted on spherical silica nanoparticles immersed in polystyrene are investigated by means of a Monte Carlo methodology based on polymer mean field theory. The nanoparticle radii (either 8 nm…
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…
Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations are presented for a coarse-grained bead-spring model of ring polymer brushes under compression. Flexible polymer brushes are always disordered during compression, whereas semiflexible brushes tend to be…
It has recently been proposed that the miscibility of nanoparticles with a polymer matrix can be controlled by grafting polymer chains to the nanoparticle surface. As a first step to study this situation, we have used molecular dynamics…
A coarse grained model for flexible polymers end-grafted to repulsive spherical nanoparticles is studied for various chain lengths and grafting densities under good solvent conditions, by Molecular Dynamics methods and density functional…
Polymer fibers are currently exploited in tremendously important technologies. Their innovative properties are mainly determined by the behavior of the polymer macromolecules under the elongation induced by external mechanical or…
Understanding and controlling self-assembly processes at multiple length scales is vital if we are to design and create advanced materials. In particular, our ability to organise matter on the nanoscale has advanced considerably, but still…
Trapping macromolecules in nanopits finds multifarious applications in polymer separation, filtering biomolecules etc. However, tuning the locomotion of polymers in channels of nanoscopic dimensions is greatly restricted by the comparative…
We demonstrate a novel route of spatially organizing the colloid arrangements on the polymer-grafted substrate by use of self-consistent field and density functional theories. We find that grafting of polymers onto a substrate can…
We investigate the effect of polymer length dispersity on the properties of self-assembled micelles in solution by self-consistent field calculations. Polydispersity stabilizes micelles by raising the free energy barriers of micelle…
The behavior of particles driven through a narrow constriction is investigated in experiment and simulation. The system of particles adapts to the confining potentials and the interaction energies by a self-consistent arrangement of the…
Large scale molecular dynamics simulations are used to study the dispersion of nanoparticles (NPs) in a polymer film during solvent evaporation. As the solvent evaporates, a dense polymer-rich skin layer forms at the liquid/vapor interface,…
We survey our research on modeling the mechanisms of control of uniformity in growth of nanosize and colloid particles. The former are produced as nanocrystals, by burst-nucleation from solution. The latter, colloid-size particles, are…
Elastic sheets with macroscopic dimensions are easy to deform by bending and stretching. Yet shaping nanometric sheets by mechanical manipulation is hard. Here we show that nanoparticle self-assembly could be used to this end. We…
Au nanoparticles with near perfect monodispersity in shape and size self-assemble, very slowly and at room temperature, on polystyrene films for film thickness < 4R_{g}$, R_{g} being unperturbed polymer gyration radius. Nanoparticle shape…
Understanding the complexity of fragmentation processes is essential for regulating intercellular communication in mechanistic biology and developing novel bottom-up approaches in a large range of multiphase flow processes. In this context,…