(86d) Polymer Functionalized Nanoparticles in Polymer Nanocomposites

Significant interest has grown around the ability to control spatial arrangement of nanoparticles in a polymer nanocomposite to engineer materials with target properties, e.g. metamaterials where the arrangement of nanoparticles dictates the resulting optical properties. Past work has shown that one could achieve controlled assembly of nanoparticles in the polymer matrix by functionalizing nanoparticle surfaces with homopolymers. This talk will focus on our recent work using an integrated self-consistent approach involving Polymer Reference Interaction Site Model (PRISM) theory and Monte Carlo simulations to specifically understand how heterogeneity in the polymer functionalization in the form of a) copolymers with varying monomer chemistry and  monomer sequence, and b) polydispersity in homopolymer grafts can tune potential of mean force between functionalized nanoparticles, and the assembly of functionalized nanoparticles.