Improving Properties of Polymer Thin Films
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David Tromblydmt564@che.utexas.edu Office: CPE 3.402 Phone: 512-471-6754 |
Dispersion of nanoparticles in polymer thin films has been shown to be an effective method of enhancing film mechanical and electrical properties. This strategy has application to technologies such as organic electronic devices, sensors and structural materials. Experimentalists have shown that effective dispersion of particles in thin films is essential for achieving enhanced properties. Due to the tendency of the nanoparticles to aggregate, experimentalists often graft polymers of the same chemical nature as the matrix to the particles to enhance dispersion.
We model the interaction of two spheres grafted by a polymer in a melt of chemically identical polymer using self-consistent field theory in order to approximate the energy of interaction between two such spheres. By doing this, we are able to gain insight into the phase behavior of the system as a function of design parameters such as grafting density, chain lengths of the free and grafted chains, and nanoparticle sizes.
