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APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 98 » Issue 12
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 128302 (2007) [4 pages]

Chain Conformations and Bound-Layer Correlations in Polymer Nanocomposites

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Sudeepto Sen*, Yuping Xie, and Sanat K. Kumar*,†
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York 12180, USA

Hoichang Yang
Rensselaer Nanotechnology Center, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York 12180, USA

Amitabh Bansal
GE Global Research Center, Niskayuna, New York 12309, USA

Derek L. Ho
Polymer Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, USA

Lisa Hall, Justin B. Hooper, and Kenneth S. Schweizer
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA

Received 17 May 2006; published 22 March 2007

Small angle neutron scattering studies on polystyrene loaded with spherical silica nanoparticles under contrast-matched conditions unequivocally show that chain conformations follow unperturbed Gaussian statistics independent of chain molecular weight and filler composition. Liquid state theory calculations are consistent with this conclusion and also predict filler-induced modification of interchain polymer correlations which have a distinctive scattering signature that is in nearly quantitative agreement with our observations.

© 2007 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.128302
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.128302
PACS:
82.35.Np, 61.46.−w

*Present address: Department of Chemical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, New York, USA.

†Corresponding author.

Electronic address: sk2794@columbia.edu

 
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