Forming supramolecular networks from nanoscale rods in binary, phase- separating mixtures

Science

Volumn 288, Issue 5472, 2000, Pages 1802-1804

  Peng, Gongwen ^a   Qiu, Feng ^a   Ginzburg, Valeriy V ^a   Jasnow, David ^b   Balazs, Anna C ^a  

^a University of Pittsburgh   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

NANOPARTICLE; POLYMER;

ARTICLE; CHEMICAL INTERACTION; MOLECULAR DYNAMICS; PRIORITY JOURNAL; SIMULATION; THERMODYNAMICS;

EID: 0034625545     PISSN: 00368075     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1126/science.288.5472.1802     Document Type: Article

References (16)

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3. P. G. de Gennes and J. Prost, Physics of Liquid Crystals (Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, ed. 2, 1993), chap. 4.
4. M. Adams et al., Nature 393, 349 (1998), and references therein.
5. V. V. Ginzburg et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 4026 (1999).
6. V. V. Ginzburg et al., Phys. Rev. E 60, 4352 (1999).
7. F. Qiu et al., Langmuir 15, 4952 (1999).
8. A. C. Balazs et al., J. Phys. Chem. B 104, 3411 (2000).
9. The method is similar to the one used by Kawakatsu et al. (14) to describe ternary oil/water/ surfactant mixtures. In our system, however, the additives are rigid rods that localize in one of the phases, rather than surfactants that bind to the interfaces.
10. Coating the rods with A-type chains provides a mechanism for simultaneously obtaining steric repulsion between the rods and the preferential wetting.
11. In binary mixtures of liquid crystals and flexible coils, a minority coil phase can temporarily form a network; however, this network evolves into droplets within a relatively short time (15).
12. AB) < 1 according to the mean-field analysis.
13. We are extending the simulation to capture the structures that are formed in three dimensions.
14. T. Kawakatsu et al., J. Phys. Condens. Matter 6, 6385 (1994).
15. A. M. Lapena et al., Phys. Rev. E 60, R29 (1999).
16. This work was supported by grants from the Army Research Office, NSF, U.S. Department of Energy, and the Office of Naval Research.