Tuning Polymer-Grafted Particle Monolayer Structure at the Air-Water Interface by Introducing Anisotropic Features

Fabrication of anisotropic material is one of the important topics and we examined to introduce “anisotropic” nature by spreading polymer-grafted particle on the medium with polymer-reactive potential. Poly (tert-butyl methacrylate) (PtBMA) was polymerized from polystyrene latex (PSL) surface by ATRP to give PtBMA-grafted PSL (PSL-PtBMA). Particle monolayer was formed at air-water and air-acidic water interfaces and the monolayer characteristics were compared by π-A isotherm measurements, SEM observations, and contact angle measurements. π-A isotherms, in particular, indicates that the interaction between polymer chains become stronger by changing the subphase condition, which suggests that anisotropicparticle monolayer formation.

Orientated-assembly of rod-like silica particles based on sandwich structure from the superhydrophobic template and the superhydrophilic substrates

The paper demonstrated a facile approach for the orientated assembly of the rod-like silica particles by sandwich structure from the combined effect of superhydrophobic template and the superhydrophilic substrates. The rod-like particles can be arranged in ring-like, square-like and etc from the confined effect of the template, which will produce an important insight for the oriented assembly ofanisotropic particles and the development of the novel functional materials and devices.

Collective diffusion in a two-dimensional liquid composed of Janus particles

The collective diffusion of anisotropic particles in liquids plays a crucial role in many processes,such as self-assembly.The patchy particle,which is usually nearly spherical in shape,is an important anisotropic particle with different properties from other anisotropic particles like the ellipsoid liquid crystal particles.In the present study,molecular dynamics simulations are performed to study the collective diffusion of a two-dimensional anisotropic liquid system composed of Janus particles.The static structures and diffusion behaviours of anisotropic and isotropic Lennard-Jones liquids are compared.The long-time diffusion behaviour of an anisotropic liquid of nearly spherical Janus particles is found to be similar to that of an isotropic liquid because the orientation of the particles disappears over long-term averaging.The anisotropic properties of the Janus particles are mainly reflected in the spatial correlation of particle orientations and mid-time diffusion behaviour.The difference between nearly spherical anisotropic particles and rod-like particles is also discussed in this paper.

Entropy-driven self-assembly of tethered Janus nanoparticles on a sphere

Understanding the effect of curvature and topological frustration on self-assembly yields insight into the mechanistic details of the ordering of identical subunits in curved spaces,such as the assembly of viral capsids,growth of solid domains on vesicles,and the self-assembly of molecular monolayers.However,the self-assembly of nanoparticles with anisotropic surface topology and compartmentalization on curved surfaces remains elusive.By combining large-scale molecular simulations as well as theoretical analysis,we demonstrate here that the interplay among anisotropy,curvature,and chain conformation induces tethered Janus nanoparticles to self-assemble into diverse novel structures on a sphere,including binary nanocluster(C_(B)),trinary nanocluster(C_(T)),nanoribbon(R_(N))and hexagon with centered reverse(HR),which are mapped on a phase diagram related to the length asymmetry of tethered chains and Janus balance of the nanoparticles.The dynamical mechanism for the formation of these structure states is analyzed by examining the detailed kinetic pathways as well as free energy.We also show that the centered-reverse state is more prone to emerging around the topological defects,indicating the defect-enhanced entropy effect on a curved surface.Finally,the analytical model that rationalizes the regimes of these structure states is developed and fits simulations reasonably well,resulting in a mechanistic interpretation based on the order through entropy.Our findings shed light on curvature engineering as a versatile strategy to tailor the superstructures formed by anisotropic building blocks toward unique properties.