xxiii πανελληνιο ÏƒÏ Î½ÎµÎ´ÏÎ¹Î¿ Ï†Ï ÏƒÎ¹ÎºÎ·Ï‚ στερεας καταστασης & επιστημης ...

Hybrid Materials from Giant Compound Block Copolymer Micelles Encapsulating Gold
Nanoparticles
Chris Mantzaridis 1 , Stergios Pispas 1
1 Theoretical and Physical Chemistry Institute, National Hellenic Research Foundation, 48 Vass. Constantinou Ave., 11635
Athens, Greece
*xmantzar@eie.gr
In the past few years a growing attention has been given to nanostructured materials. The key factor which evoked
this attention was the fact that in the nano scale (1-100 nm) new properties can be present. These properties exhibit an strong
dependency on the size of a certain structural unit.The main phenomena that evolve in the case of semiconductor/metal
nanoparticles is the plasmon resonance absorption band. The search for new materials involving semiconductor/metal
nanoparticles and polymers still continues. Such hybrid materials combine the optical properties of the inorganic component
and the mechanical properties of the polymeric component and can be found in a variety of nanostructures that are introduced
due to the nanophase separation in block copolymer systems.
In the first part of the current work the micelles of a diblock copolymer poly(styrene-b-2-vinyl pyridine) (PS-
P2VP) were used as a nanoreactor for the creation of gold nanoparticles. In the second step the micelles containing gold
nanoparticles were encapsulated inside the core of the micelles of another diblock copolymer poly(styrene-b-isoprene) which
was diluted in n-heptane. In this solvent the copolymer creates micelles with a core of polystyrene and a corona of
polyisoprene. The fact that the core of the micelles is polystrene allowed us to insert the compound material inside the core,
due to the affinity with the corona of the first micelles that is polystyrene also. In sheme 1 the overall experimental procedure
is depicted. The creation of such novel nanostructures was stidied in solution and in balk state by static and dynamic light
scattering, UV visible spectroscopy and electron microscopy. The results of the methods showed the succesful synthesis of
the designed materials.
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