Elucidation of Internal Fine Structure of "Polymer Nanosphere" in the Interfacial Particle Film

Abstract

Transition behavior from a monolayer on the water surface to a single particle layer of a ternary comb copolymer with highly hydrophobic carbazole units and both hydrogenated and fluorinated side-chains have been investigated by surface pressure−area (π−A) isotherm and atomic force microscopic (AFM) observation. Moreover, we fabricated a polymer nanosphere multilayered organization consisting of such polymer nanoparticles by the Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) technique, and estimated the particle arrangement by performing out-of-plane X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. This polymer monolayer is able to form the polymer nanosheet with amorphous layers. The multiparticle layered organization of polymer nanosphere is fabricated from the single particle layer by the LB technique. These layer structures have highly regular arrangement along the c-axis. Further, we investigated molecular arrangement inside of polymer particles by performing in-plane XRD analysis and fluorescence spectroscopy. This copolymer formed side-chain crystals inside the particles. Fluorocarbon chains had a short spacing of 5.0 Å for the two-dimensional side-chain lattice whereas hydrocarbon chains formed sub-cell at short spacing of 4.2 Å. In addition, aggregated structure of carbazole rings is formed by π-π interaction.