Pirner, Daniela; Dulle, Martin; Mauer, Miriam Eugenie Judith; Förster, Stephan
Reinforcement of nanostructured organogels by hydrogen bonds
Organogels based on hydrogen-bond reinforced ordered micellar assemblies, having a very well-defined nanoscale structure and dynamic behaviour, are synthesized and investigated. The organogels consist of block copolymer micelles with covalently linked hydrogen bonding groups at their periphery which mediate attractive interactions between adjacent micelles. The structure and the viscoelastic…
Self-Assembly and Formation of Chromonic Liquid Crystals from the Dyes Quinaldine Red Acetate and Pyronin Y
Magana, J. R.; Homs, M.; Solans, C.; Obiols-Rabasa, M.; Salonen, L. M.; Rodríguez-Abreu, C.
The aqueous self-assembly behavior of the dyes Quinaldine red acetate and Pyronin Y in a wide range of concentrations is reported here for the first time. 1H NMR spectroscopy, polarized-light optical microscopy, and small and wide X-ray scattering were used to get insight into molecular interactions, phase boundaries and aggregate…
On the twist-bend nematic phase formed directly from the isotropic phase
Dawood, Alya A.; Grossel, Martin C.; Luckhurst, Geoffrey R.; Richardson, Robert M.; Timimi, Bakir A.; Wells, Neil J.; Yousif, Yousif Z.
The intriguing twist-bend nematic (NTB) phase is formed, primarily, by liquid crystal dimers having odd spacers. Typically, the phase is preceded by a nematic (N) phase via a weak first-order transition. Our aim is to obtain dimers where the NTB phase is formed directly from the isotropic (I) phase via…
Hybrid Microgels with Confined Needle-like Lanthanide Phosphate Nanocrystals
Mastour Tehrani, Sepehr; Lin, Wanjuan; Rosenfeldt, Sabine; Guerin, Gerald; Lu, Yijie; Liang, Yi; Drechsler, Markus; Förster, Stephan; Winnik, Mitchell A.
We describe the room-temperature synthesis and characterization of needle-like lanthanide phosphate (LnPO4) nanocrystals in water, based on in situ precipitation of LnPO4 using functional aqueous microgels as a soft nanoreactor. The poly(NIPAm/VCL/MAA) microgels were prepared by the copolymerization of N-isopropylacrylamide, N-vinylcaprolactam, and methacrylic acid. Our goal was to prepare…
Tunable Percolation in Semiconducting Binary Polymer Nanoparticle Glasses
Renna, Lawrence A.; Bag, Monojit; Gehan, Timothy S.; Han, Xu; Lahti, Paul M.; Maroudas, Dimitrios; Venkataraman, D.
Binary polymer nanoparticle glasses provide opportunities to realize the facile assembly of disparate components, with control over nanoscale and mesoscale domains, for the development of functional materials. This work demonstrates that tunable electrical percolation can be achieved through semiconducting/insulating polymer nanoparticle glasses by varying the relative percentages of equal-sized…
Ordered Mesoporous to Macroporous Oxides with Tunable Isomorphic Architectures: Solution Criteria for Persistent Micelle Templates
Lokupitiya, Hasala N.; Jones, Alexis; Reid, Barry; Guldin, Stefan; Stefik, Morgan
Porous and nanoscale architectures of inorganic materials have become crucial for a range of energy and catalysis applications, where the ability to control the morphology largely determines the transport characteristics and device performance. Despite the availability of a range of block copolymer self-assembly methods, the conditions for tuning the key…
“Cross” Supermicelles via the Hierarchical Assembly of Amphiphilic Cylindrical Triblock Comicelles
Li, Xiaoyu; Gao, Yang; Boott, Charlotte E.; Hayward, Dominic W.; Harniman, Robert; Whittell, George R.; Richardson, Robert M.; Winnik, Mitchell A.; Manners, Ian
Self-assembled ?cross? architectures are well-known in biological systems (as illustrated by chromosomes, for example); however, comparable synthetic structures are extremely rare. Herein we report an in depth study of the hierarchical assembly of the amphiphilic cylindrical P?H?P triblock comicelles with polar (P) coronal ends and a hydrophobic (H) central periphery…
Supramolecular Nanocomposites: Dual-Functional Cholesteric Hydroxypropyl Cellulose Esters Chemically Linked to Gold Nanoparticles
Ohlendorf, Peter; Dulle, Martin; Förster, Stephan; Greiner, Andreas
Functionalization of metal nanoparticles with liquid crystal polymers (LCP) is attractive for the formation of supramolecular structures with unique physical properties. We discovered that the chemical linkage of a liquid crystalline thiolated cellulose ester (HPC-MTP_80) to gold nanoparticles (AuNP) leads, by control of the supramolecular structure, to a novel concept…
Increasing time of ignition for PS-clay nanocomposites filled with [Fe(bpy)3]2+-modified hectorite
Hausner, Josef; Fischer, Bianca; Stöter, Matthias; Edenharter, Andreas; Schmid, Jasmin; Kunz, Raphael; Rosenfeldt, Sabine; Altstädt, Volker; Breu, Josef
While previously reported polystyrene(PS)-clay nanocomposites all show a reduced time of ignition (tig) compared to the neat polymer, we observe a significant longer tig for a clay filler that has been modified with a highly temperature stable inorganic complex cation, trisbipyridine-iron(II) (2+). We compare cone data of nanocomposites filled with…
Nanostructuring Mixed-Dimensional Perovskites: A Route Toward Tunable, Efficient Photovoltaics
Koh, Teck Ming; Shanmugam, Vignesh; Schlipf, Johannes; Oesinghaus, Lukas; Müller-Buschbaum, Peter; Ramakrishnan, N.; Swamy, Varghese; Mathews, Nripan; Boix, Pablo P.; Mhaisalkar, Subodh G.
Advanced Materials, 2016, pp. n/a-n/aDOI:10.1002/adma.201506141Visit the full articleBack to the overview