Flowerlike Multipetal Structures of Nanoparticles Decorated by Amphiphilic Homopolymers

AS Ushakova and AA Lazutin and VV Vasilevskaya, MACROMOLECULES, 54, 6285-6295 (2021).

DOI: 10.1021/acs.macromol.1c00467

This paper aims to address nanoparticles decorated by amphiphilic homopolymers composed of monomeric units with significantly different groups. It is shown that the amphiphilic structure of monomer units and the resulting effective surface activity cause the grafted macromolecules to combine into thin layers, which are arranged on a spherical nanoparticle, have a different curvature, and form a multipetal flowerlike structure. The conditions for the formation of multipetal structures are outlined, and the possibility of cascades of transformations with a smooth increase in the petal number and its sharp growth is revealed. The results are presented in the form of structure diagrams obtained in a computer experiment and constructed within the framework of the original analytical theory.

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