Ordered Toroid Structures of Nanoparticles in Self-attractive Semiflexible Polymer/Nanoparticle Composites

By employing dynamic Monte Carlo simulations, we investigate a coil-to-toroid transition of self-attractive semiflexible polymers and the spatial distributions of nanoparticles in self attractive semiflexible polymer/nanoparticle composites. The conformation of self-attractive semiflexible polymers depends on bending energy and self-attractive interactions between monomers in polymer chains. A three-stage process of toroid formation for self-attractive semiflexible chains is shown: several isolated toroids, a loose toroid structure, and a compact toroid structure. Utilizing the compact toroid conformations of self-attractive semiflexible chains, we can control effectively the spatial distributions of nanoparticles in self-attractive semiflexible polymer nanocomposites, and an unconventional toroid structure of nanoparticles is observed.