Block copolymer directed assembly of nanocrystals present an exciting avenue for enabling bottom up processing of inorganic materials and organic-inorganic composites that harness the merits of both classes of materials along with precise control of structure. One limit in the approach include chemical specificity necessitating nanocrystal surface ligand functionalization prior to assembly to prevent macrophase separation of nanocrystals out of the block copolymer domain. A second limit is the ability to achieve a high loading of nanocrystals in the structure without macrophase separation or kinetic arrest due to effects such as particle jamming. Prior work on a specific polymer polystyrene-polydimethylacrylamide (PS-PDMA) where the acrylamide block preferentially adsorbs to bare nanocrystal surfaces have shown micelle assembly of nanocrystals of arbitrary composition up to high loading as long as the nanocrystals are ligand stripped of their native organic ligands. Here, we extend the extent of assembly in the morphological space by demonstrating solvent annealed microphase separated morphologies using PS-PDMA and ligand stripped nanocrystals. We also demonstrate the coassembly of binary nanocrystal systems within the same block copolymer system having uncovered the nature of the interaction between PDMA and the nanocrystals. These findings possess significant implications in regards to how ligand stripped nanocrystals may be assembled with other assembly systems such as PS-PEO and PS-P4VP.<br/>

Block copolymer assembly of ligand stripped nanocrystals

2019 Fall National Meeting

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