title: The structure and volume phase transition behavior of poly(N-vinylcaprolactam)-based hybrid microgels containing carbon nanodots.
abstract: In this paper, we investigated the internal structure and the volume phase transition (VPT) behavior of poly(N-vinylcaprolactam-co-vinylimidazole)/polymerizable carbon nanodot (P(VCL-co-VIM)/PCND) microgels with different amounts of PCNDs. Our study shows that compared to the pure P(VCL-co-VIM) microgel, the hybrid microgels undergo a two-step VPT as the temperature increases and a core-shell(-corona) structure of the hybrid microgels is formed by copolymerization with PCNDs. A change in the amount of PCNDs has effects on both of the volume phase transition temperature and internal structure of microgels. Moreover, based on FT-IR in combination with perturbation correlation moving window (PCMW) and two-dimensional correlation spectral (2Dcos) analyses, the difference in VPT behavior between the shell and the core (corona) structure of the hybrid microgels at the molecular level is elucidated. The core/shell of the hybrid microgels fixed with hydrophilic PCNDs has a higher transition temperature during heating and a more compact structure due to the additional crosslinkers PCNDs.
authors.affiliation: The State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers, Collaborative Innovation Center of Polymers and Polymer Composite Materials, Department of Macromolecular Science and Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China. peiyiwu@fudan.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Wenhui
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: The State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers, Collaborative Innovation Center of Polymers and Polymer Composite Materials, Department of Macromolecular Science and Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China. peiyiwu@fudan.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Peiyi
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wu