Scattering properties and internal structure of magnetic filament brushes

Author(s)
Elena S. Pyanzina, Pedro A. Sánchez, Joan J. Cerdà, Tomás Sintes, Sofia Kantorovich
Abstract

Practical applications of polymer brush-like systems rely on a clear understanding of their internal structure. In the case of magnetic nanoparticle filament brushes, the competition between bonding and nonbonding interactions-including long range magnetic dipole-dipole interactions-makes the microstructure of these polymer brush-like systems rather complex. On the other hand, the same interactions open up the possibility to manipulate the meso- and macroscopic responses of these systems by applying external magnetic fields or by changing the background temperature. In this study, we put forward an approach to extract information about the internal structure of a magnetic filament brush from scattering experiments. Our method is based on the mapping of the scattering profiles to the information about the internal equilibrium configurations of the brushes obtained from computer simulations. We show that the structure of the magnetic filament brush is strongly anisotropic in the direction perpendicular to the grafting surface, especially at low temperatures and external fields. This makes slice-by-slice scattering measurements a technique very useful for the study of such systems.

Organisation(s)
Computational and Soft Matter Physics
External organisation(s)
University of the Balearic Islands, Ural Federal University
Journal
Soft Matter
Volume
13
Pages
2590 -2602
No. of pages
13
ISSN
1744-683X
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/C6SM02606K
Publication date
2016
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
103015 Condensed matter, 103006 Chemical physics
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Condensed Matter Physics, General Chemistry
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/344a3945-a931-4163-84c9-0481d52f9866