This contribution will highlight novel strategies to harness surface-initiated atom-transfer controlled radical polymerization to facilitate the preparation of polymer nanocomposite materials with advanced control of optical and mechanical properties. In a first part, it will be demonstrated that the grafting of random copolymers to particle surfaces provides a versatile means to facilitate uniform particle dispersions even at very high particle filling fractions (in excess of 50 % by volume). For appropriate composition of the random-copolymer grafts the scattering cross section of embedded particle systems can be reduced by up to 2 orders of magnitude. In a second part, the self assembly of particle brush systems will be shown to provide a path towards nanocomposite materials with advanced mechanical properties as well as precisely controlled microstructure.

Quasi-one-component nanocomposite materials based on precision-engineered particle brush systems

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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