We report the formation of colloidal polymers consisting of disk-like silica nanoparticles (NPs) with polystyrene (PS) chains at the bottom of their two cavities assembled through reduction of the solvent quality for the PS chains and linked by hydrophobic associations. We show that this NPs assembly exhibits a two-stage process involving reaction-controlled polymerization and diffusion-controlled polymerization. Colloidal polymer networks are produced by the incorporation of three-patch NPs, which serve as branching points between the colloidal chains. By co-assembling preformed homopolymers composed of patchy NPs of different sizes or surface chemical groups, block copolymers are also achieved. This study provides insight into the process of self-assembly of two-patch NPs by precisely designing the components to generate colloidal analogues of linear macromolecular chains.

我们报告了胶体聚合物的形成，该胶体聚合物由盘状二氧化硅纳米颗粒（NPs）组成，在两个腔体的底部通过聚苯乙烯（PS）链组装而成，这些聚苯乙烯通过降低PS链的溶剂质量并通过疏水性缔合而组装。我们表明，此NPs组装展示了一个两阶段的过程，涉及反应控制的聚合和扩散控制的聚合。胶体聚合物网络是通过掺入三补丁的NPs产生的，NPs作为胶体链之间的分支点。通过共组装由不同大小或表面化学基团的片状NP组成的预成型均聚物，还可以获得嵌段共聚物。