Organic/inorganic hybrid nanoscale materials possess fascinating optical, electronic, magnetic and catalytic properties which are promising for many practical applications. Such properties can be dramatically affected by the hierarchical structure and molecular organization in the nanoscale materials. In this presentation, we will discuss using surface-initiated Kumada catalyst-transfer polymerization in preparation of hybrid materials consisting of shells of conjugated polymers, polythiophene or poly(<i>p</i>-phenylene), and their block copolymers covalently attached to the surface of silica nanoparticles. Due to the controlled chain-growth mechanism of surface-initiated polymerization, we obtained structurally well-defined conjugated polymer blocks in the diblock copolymer shells, which produced distinct spectroscopic characteristics related to intra-particle excitation energy transfer between the nanoscale polymer shell components, as well as formation of the interfacial exciplex states. Overall, the surface-initiated polymerization provided an efficient tool to prepare structurally defined and highly stable organic polymer shell - inorganic core nanoparticles with tunable spectroscopic characteristics not achievable from corresponding single-component systems.

Silica-conjugated polymer hybrid fluorescent nanoparticles preparation by surface-initiated polymerization

2019 Spring National Meeting

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