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Authors
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Shagolsem, L. ; Sommer, J.-U.
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Title
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Diblock copolymer-selective nanoparticle mixtures in the lamellar phase confined between two parallel walls: a mean field model
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Date
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27.09.2012
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Number
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34625
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Abstract
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We present a mean field model for a mixture of AB diblock-copolymers and A-block selective nanoparticles confined between two identical non-selective walls. A horizontally symmetric lamellar structure of the nanocomposite is considered where nanoparticles are allowed to segregate between the polymerwall interfaces. For a fixed value of wall separation, we study changes in the free energy as a function of the number of lamellar layers and the amount of nanoparticle uptake in the A-phase denoted by y = [curly or open phi]x with 0 ? x ? 1 for a given value of [curly or open phi], where [curly or open phi] is the overall nanoparticle volume fraction. The absorption isotherm for nanoparticle uptake in the A-phase as a function of [curly or open phi] shows saturation beyond a threshold value [curly or open phi]s, and the optimal value of uptake y increases with increasing strength of monomernanoparticle attractive interaction. Increasing [curly or open phi] above [curly or open phi]s produces a decrease in the optimal number of lamellar layers which is related to a jump-like transition of the chain extension. The effect of varying film thickness is also studied. By considering A-block selective walls we also investigated a wetting transition of the copolymer film and found the transition to be discontinuous. A corresponding phase diagram is constructed.
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Publisher
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Soft Matter
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Wikidata
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Citation
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Soft Matter 8 (2012) 11328-11335
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DOI
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https://doi.org/10.1039/C2SM26531A
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Tags
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