0000000000230699
AUTHOR
S. Stölken
The effect of the internal architecture of polymer micronetwork colloids on the dynamics in highly concentrated dispersions
Motivated by the finding that colloidal dispersions of polymer micronetwork spheres with a cross-link density of 1:50 (inverse number of monomer units between crosslinks) show significant deviations from the dynamics of hard spheres in the colloid glass as seen by dynamic light scattering (DLS) (E. Bartsch, V. Frenz, H. Sillescu J. Non — Cryst. Solids 172–174 (1994), 88–97), we have undertaken a systematic study of the effect of the crosslink density on the dynamics at high concentrations. Long-time self-diffusion coefficients D S L and collective diffusion coefficients D c were measured for colloids with crosslink densities of 1:10, 1:20 and 1:50 by forced Rayleigh scattering (FRS) and the…
Collective and self diffusion of PS microgels in solution as observed by thermal diffusion forced Rayleigh scattering
Thermal diffusion in solutions of polystyrene micro-network spheres (microgels) in toluene has been studied by the holographic scattering technique of thermal diffusion forced Rayleigh scattering (TDFRS) and by photon correlation spectroscopy (PCS). Size distributions of microgels of different crosslink ratios are obtained from TDFRS measurements on dilute solutions at very low q-values around 4000cm−1. At low concentrations a single diffusive mode is observed and the diffusion coefficient increases with concentration. It is attributed to the collective diffusion of the microgels and the solvent. At high concentrations an additional slow mode appears whose diffusion coefficient decreases wi…
Spherical microgel colloids - Hard spheres from soft matter
While gels are usually considered to be soft materials, we demonstrate that it is possible to model hard sphere behaviour when the gel structure is confined to spherical objects of sizes in the colloidal range. We have measured the static structure factor of microgel spheres dispersed in good solvents, differing in size, crosslink density and swelling behaviour, by light scattering and small angle neutron scattering. Comparing with theoretical calculations for polydisperse hard spheres we show how the interactions in highly concentrated dispersions of spherical microgel colloids are determined by an interplay of the relative length of dangling polymer ends at the surface (determined by the …