title: Colloidal polymers with controlled sequence and branching constructed from magnetic field assembled nanoparticles.
abstract: The assembly of nanoparticles into polymer-like architectures is challenging and usually requires highly defined colloidal building blocks. Here, we show that the broad size-distribution of a simple dispersion of magnetic nanocolloids can be exploited to obtain various polymer-like architectures. The particles are assembled under an external magnetic field and permanently linked by thermal sintering. The remarkable variety of polymer-analogue architectures that arises from this simple process ranges from statistical and block copolymer-like sequencing to branched chains and networks. This library of architectures can be realized by controlling the sequencing of the particles and the junction points via a size-dependent self-assembly of the single building blocks.
authors.affiliation: †Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Ackermannweg 10, 55128 Mainz, Germany.|§Graduate School of Materials Science in Mainz, Staudinger Weg 9, 55128 Mainz, Germany.|∥Empa, Laboratory for Protection and Physiology, Lerchenfeldstrasse 5, CH-9014 St. Gallen, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Markus B
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Bannwarth
authors.affiliation: ‡Department of Physics and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, United States.
authors.forename: Stefanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Utech
authors.affiliation: †Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Ackermannweg 10, 55128 Mainz, Germany.
authors.forename: Sandro
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ebert
authors.affiliation: ‡Department of Physics and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, United States.
authors.forename: David A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Weitz
authors.affiliation: †Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Ackermannweg 10, 55128 Mainz, Germany.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Crespy
authors.affiliation: †Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Ackermannweg 10, 55128 Mainz, Germany.
authors.forename: Katharina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Landfester
keywords: colloidal polymers; controlled sequencing; magnetic self-assembly; nanoparticles