Colloidal particles can assemble into a linear colloidal chain by directional attraction with orthogonal repulsion between the particles. This colloidal chain can be considered as a nanoscale analogue of conventional polymers. In this study, we characterized the lengths and size distributions of colloidal chains assembled from diblock copolymer micelles. We first polymerized patchy micelles of diblock copolymers as colloidal monomers into linear colloidal chains. Then, by spin-coating them onto a solid substrate, we measured their persistence and contour lengths, which can be utilized to describe the flexibility of the chains. According to the analysis, the chains are semi-flexible and their conformations can be explained by the worm-like chain model. In addition, the statistics of the chain lengths follow the most-probable distribution and the polydispersity index also shows the value close to two as expected in the step-growth polymerization.

Colloidal chains of diblock copolymer micelles described by conventional semi-flexible polymers

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