Collaborators:

Jens-Uwe Sommer and Holger Merlitz.

Introduction:

Mixtures of Polymer and precisely sized nano-particles are of general interest in nanotechnology and biophysics. A basic problem is the mutual interaction between nanoparticles induced by the polymer matrix. Depletion attraction plays an important role, but also the concentration of the polymer matrix and the interaction between monomers and particles. All these properties can be used to control the phase behavior and surface behavior of polymer nanoparticle mixtures. Moreover, mixing nanoparticles with copolymers can be used to control the morphology in particular for the case of thin films. We are also interested in the influence of shear fields on the morphology of such composites.

Highlights:

1. Xue-Zheng Cao, Holger Merlitz and Chen-Xu Wu
   Tuning Adsorption Duration to Control the Diffusion of a Nanoparticle in Adsorbing Polymers,
   J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 8 (2017) 2629-2633
2. Xue-Zheng Cao; Holger Merlitz, Chen-Xu Wu, Goran Unger and Jens-Uwe Sommer
   A theoretical study of dispersion-to-aggregation of nanoparticles in adsorbing polymers using molecular dynamics simulations
   NANOSCALE 8 (2016) 6964-6968
3. Xue-Zheng Cao, Holger Merlitz, Chen-Xu Wu and Jens-Uwe Sommer
   Polymer induced Inverse-Temperature Crystallization of Nanoparticles on a Substrate
   ACS Nano 7 (2013) 9920-9926